Perhaps it can't be taken to extremes, but in my experience, constraints
force architects to produce better work.  I am inclined to agree with the distinguished gentleman from Michigan or Wisconsin or wherever it is. Every time I have rejected an architect's proposal for a new building, the architect has come back with something better, usually, a whole lot better.  The architecture
profession has a lot of rhetoric about how every site is unique, but in
practice you don't get a building uniquely well-adapted to the site unless
you enforce unique constraints. Yep.

> Read also the battle-statements made by the non-profit preservation groups
> involved in such discussions - they show little evidence of connoisseurship
> or real architectural concerns - they are simply about bulk, shadows, views
> of existing tenancies, construction noise.

I am surprised you would expect anything else.

> In such an environment, could even Howard have a chance?

If Howard can't deal with bulk, shadows, views, and noise, he's not worthy
of being an architect.  Or becoming a fictional character, except as a bad example.