How do you propose they do that? For example, take your typical steel-and-glass skyscraper, such as the One World Trade Center. How can the inhabitants make the exterior less hostile? Or affect it at all?
And isn't the complete absence of any kind of style, color, or pleasant features in general, an imposition of a specific view in itself?
And finally, is what you describe even a problem? How many people living in old Art Deco skyscrapers are miserable and trying to leave due to having a century-old style imposed upon them? Or people living in historic neighborhoods? Whereas featureless gray cubes "free them to bring their own life and color"?