‘Townhouses’ versus Small-town houses

"A stupefying architectural sameness, based on a stupefyingly ugly set of models. Street of standard shop-cuboid follows street of standard shop-cuboid…In the countryside, as one passes...from province to province…the houses change: the building materials, the shape of the doorways, the eaves of the roofs, the style of the walls and courtyards, the number of windows, everything changes with climate and terrain. But this harmony with nature is absent in the stodgy and conformist architecture of the cities. However, the older parts of the cities, the lanes and the alleys, are their one saving grace."
- Vikram Seth in From Heaven Lake