Interesting article even if I am not sure I buy the premise. I spent a lot of time in Southern Britain in towns like Torquay, Brighton and Eastborn and thought those were lovely.

While you have probably spent years agonizing about how ugly towns in Britain are, I have done the same in my native Norway. The reasons seems similar to what you describe. Housing shortage in the postwar years and government with no sense of easthetics. Just build, build, build. They almost ended up knocking down the main street of Oslo, Karl Johan with beautiful old 1800s buildings with spires, towers, decorations and colorful facades. A popular protest prevented it.

And I have lived in the Netherlands. The centers of Dutch towns are beautiful indeed. But a lot of the suburbs are ugly as hell. I am sure they could give Britain a run for the money.

Also what you say about Germany doesn't quite make sense to me. A lot of stuff in Germany is pretty ugly. And Germany was in massive housing shorage after towns were completely bombed out. It is not like money just flowed in there. Have you seen the Netflix show "The Defeated" set in postwar Berlin? It is mind boggling how destroyed that city was and how people were just living in ruins.

They were broke and owed money to everyone, while having a whole country to rebuild. But I have read somewhere that the way Germany regulated social housing meant that higher quality housing got built than in Britain. The economic incentives were different.