There are plenty of places that are installing nice streetlights. For example, in Berkeley when they underground utilities they install nice old-school lighting fixtures.

This is very much a "these things are true and terrible" essay when it should be "I'm seeing a lot of these things that I don't like." Don't assert as facts things that you do not know to be facts.

And like most things that try to invoke authority by mentioning Jobs or Apple, this essay is entirely wrong about the invocation. A style for the case of an extremely functional device should not detract from the device, but streetlights aren't "extremely" functional devices that do a lot of things.