The March of Bricks and Mortar, 1829

F. Roy Willis.  Western Civilization.  An Urban Perspective.  Volume III.  D.C. Heath & Co., 1973.

One of Cruickshank's contemporaries wrote, ""The rage for building fills every pleasant outlet with bricks, mortar, rubbish and eternal scaffold-poles, which, whether you walk east, west, north or south, seem to be running after you."

For a current and more local perspective from my neck of the woods, read Craig Bakay's editorial, 'Progress' is usually just a sounds-good word for greed.