I think it's up to local governments to require buildings to have some semblance of aesthetics taken into consideration. In the olden times a lot of buildings

I think it's up to local governments to require buildings to have some semblance of aesthetics taken into consideration. In the olden times a lot of buildings were built BY the future residents who had a stake in making it look nice. But modern buildings are just built to spec by the cheapest bidder and target renters who, like you said, are basically just sorting apartments.com by price/sf. It's arguably a tragedy of the commons. The people who live there get maximum value for the money while everyone else has to look at a bland monstrosity every day.