On Crash Bars, 32" Doors, and the Death of Architectural Ingenuity.

One may bemoan progress until the tongue flings itself out of the mouth, and it will amount to little more than spitting into the wind. My purpose is not to belly-ache, but to eulogize (something I feel like doing quite a bit lately), and moreover to eulogize a time I am not strictly old enough to remember.
Nostalgia for a thing-not-remembered... is there a word for that?
It strikes me that the increase in oversight by governments federal and local regarding building codes is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I am a fan of buildings that do not tend to burst into flames. On the other, unification of doorway width and mechanisms for entry/exit leaves us with a decided lack of character in our edifices. Walking through a hallway in an office in Peoria, Ill. looks much the same as in Bellevue, Wash., for the very simple reason that the rules for building those two offices are the same. It is worth mentioning that both of those buildings are accessible to the handicapped, less likely to invite rodents, and (my personal favourite) far less inclined to become conflagrations.
Much of America suffers from this same malady. The Franchise Philosophy has blended what might have been a developing character and turned it into a pair of tawdry, curved, glowing golden sticks. Now we have the customer service and places like Europe are relied on as the places, as Eddie Izzard would have it, "where the History comes from."
There is virtue in uniformity. It is remarkably comforting to walk into a "restaurant" and order a burger off the same menu, in the same environment, and from the same uniform (the people really don't matter, as I'm sure you know) as you would see one block away from your home. I don't deny or deride that desire, that need for the comfort of familiarity, any more than I would cast aspersions on my own happiness when seeing my family. As with many things, it is the extremity of the desire that bothers me, and moderation is a virtue in a world that has run riot on instant gratification.
I hear you say, "But Jason, my house isn't the same as my neighbours. They have character and definition." Sure, yours might do, and it might be different from your neighbours, but if your home was built within the last, say, fifteen years, then I want you to try something. Walk three or four houses down the street, maybe one cul-de-sac over, and find the house that look like yours on the outside. Go ahead. I'l be here when you get back.
I won't rail against uniformity, because it is a boon for many. Uniformity makes a variety of very nifty things very much more possible. I will (quite readily) rail against the unconscious assumption that uniformity is the only/best/needful choice. Then again, I rail against unconscious all the time.
It comes from being an insomniac.