could a 21st century city have "character"

If you look at pictures of virtually every US city posted on the board, there is a quality that they all share in common: character. And so much of that character comes from the craftsmenship of individuals who built and designed structured in an earlier, simplier time with an ability to include detail that would be hard to replicate in today's world. Our cities, of course, are equally (or often more) proud of modern develoments that have added excitement and pizzaz and a "wow!" factor to their existence. Yet for all the pleasure and the necesssity of the modern, its the older structures that give our cities their sense of place and differentiate them from each other. So theoretically what would happen if you could creat a totally new city in the US, a large city as opposed to the smaller scale efforts we have seen in the last half of the 20th century. This city could be exciting and inviting. But could it have character?? That's the question here: Is it possible to develop true urban character in an era when technology is as advanced, when virtually all decisions on the sturctures we build are on a corportate level, when the individuality of cities has been overrun by a common culture? Have we, in fact, passed a "character threshold", never to go back because of our technology (and its effect on individual craftsmanship) and the homogenizaton of national (and global) cultures? Is it just possible that somewhere around WWII, we crossed a point where a city could control its own environment and create its own world with a period of erasing differences and the elimination of those special qualities of place? Could my theoretical 21st century city be exciting and beautiful and fun...yet (no matter what it did) go forever without true "character" based on the age in which it was created?>