At the same time, I could build something as architecturally catastrophic as those McMansions in SF, clashing with every house around it,but then you have no car dependency. So ultimately your argument is that entire swaths of the US are distasteful by default.
Car dependence today has more to do with city planning than anything else. The density that would make an area walkable isn't just hard to find, but downright illegal. The smallest allowed lot for a single family house around here would fit 4 houses in The Mission, San Francisco.
Here race politics came into play, and everyone made cars mandatory to stop black people, who were poorer and couldn't afford bigger houses or cars, to move into suburbs. When everyone had a car, the town center dies, as the small stores can't compete with driving a little bit farther to the bigger store. This means that even neighborhoods with small houses that are grandfathered in are not walkable, as the places you'd walk to are gone. A friend of mine lives in a 1 bedroom bungalow with no yard. He parks on the street. And yet, he has a single business in a 20 minute walking trip.
So don't look at just houses then, look at cities. The midwest is full of McCities.