I think the thing my architect friend was getting at is, these structures are here for a long, long time, and they take up a finite (and heavily constrained res

I think the thing my architect friend was getting at is, these structures are here for a long, long time, and they take up a finite (and heavily constrained resource), so it's not like there's an opportunity for people to realistically decide in 5 or 10 years that fifteen new buildings that have been built should be replaced or adjudicated. I think the problem is that this already falls so far out of the realm of "let the market address it" because of the constraints on building and housing, especially in such a tightly-housed city as Portland; if builders build it wrong (and will make money regardless because of the constraints on this market that mean people can't reasonably take their dollar elsewhere), the city suffers in non-dollar-measurable ways for decades. Again, this is mostly coming from my friend who likes the design review board, and sees that a lot of the new development in Portland is boring from an architectural point of view (and will remain so for at least the remainder of his life) but there's absolutely nothing in a market sense that would compel anyone to build more interesting buildings. And, the more we talk about this, the more I like the idea of the design review board; I'm all in favor of sensible regulation, and your original complaint, that some styles are no longer permitted in LA, seems like even less of an issue if it means that new construction does remain aesthetically interesting. An extremely small price to pay for putting pressure on architects to build interesting new things as these buildings go up all over down. But, of course, it's all just talk and speculation, since neither of us is mayor (and at least one of us doesn't live there.)