[pwinnski]

Okay, but the person to whom you're responding is point out the value-laden, or judgement-laden sentence, and you're now changing the subject a bit.

It was assumed by the GP that houses looking similar was bad, and now it is assumed by you that said similarity extending beyond a five-minute walk + five-minute train ride is bad.

To both your point and the GP's, similarity may often be in the eye of the beholder. I live in a suburb and feel like I see quite a lot of variety on my block, and even more variety if I walk a block to the west, or two blocks to the north, where there is an apartment complex and some retail buildings. It could be that you would look at my block, or my neighborhood, and say they all look the same to you. I don't know! I've spent enough time in dense cities around the world to form the opinion that most dense city centers lack much variety on a block-by-block basis, but again, others might see it differently.

In any case, whether there is or is not visual variety is a separate issue from commutability, I think,