Haven't been to Seattle so can't comment in earnest, but from that I've seen on pictures and Street View, the downtown is just your typical American large city

Haven't been to Seattle so can't comment in earnest, but from that I've seen on pictures and Street View, the downtown is just your typical American large city downtown (once you've seen Manhattan, you've seen them all, they were mostly built in the same culture, architecture era and following the same urban patterns). It's essentially efficiency-driven and business-driven uglyness (or nondescriptness) that permiated XX century urbanism, at least in capitalist countries [1]. [1] In the Soviets, the cities were built on different premises, so they look very different - although the countries were so poor that, even though urban planning was excellent (ubiquitous parks, public spaces, houses built far away from busy roads etc.), the buildings themselves are drab due to resource constraints.