US cities: keeping identity in an indentiy-less age

We're living in a time when your city and mine struggle to be different from each other. And why not? They have the same Macy's downtown...at a location that used to be the "local" department store. It's not only McDonald's we share in common, but the upscale restaurant that doesn't look like a chain...but is. We have managed to put the same shopping/entertainment complexes on our waterfronts with the same national chain stores. Our newspapers are conglomerates, and have out-of-town ownership. Our architecture is generic. Our cities strive to be "trendy"...and they duplicate each others' trends. Corporate HQ's which used to be corporate citizens leave only a skeleton crew at the HQ's...which realistically could pick up their 200 employees and move to another city without skipping a beat. Donald Trump won't rest until every one of our cities has its own "Trump Tower". No doubt you have enough places on the ground to differentiate your city from somebody elses, but those structures have gone up over the last two centuries (or earlier). But how about today? What's going on now? WHAT DOES YOUR CITY DO TO DIFFERENTIATE ITSELF FROM ALL THE OTHER CITIES OUT DOOR, TO KEEP ITS IDENTITY....or is identity a thing of the past in our homogenized urban environments? Have all American cities become Anywhereville, or can we still maintain who we are?>