The discussion, Cailian, you started is fine - but as a Central-european (actually a German living in the border area to France) I can't agree:

not only war, Bomber-Harris included, has caused dismay/tastelessness in building anew those destroyed settlements. A lot is due to the industrial roots, or the lack of it, in building towns and villages: poverty !

And: I could send you hundreds of pictures of lost places, ugly lost places in (my beloved) France......

by the way: even in East-Germany.