Once upon a time, (actually,
in my day), lofts were
PC. They were
pretty much recycled industrial space. Even then, they fell (mostly) into
two categories: the
barely-livable loft, and the
fancy-pants loft.
Today, fancy-pants lofts are trendy. (And is the poster-child for development excess in San Francisco.) Being nonstandard housing, it gives the property developers lots of leeway to make the ground-up lofts astoundingly ugly.
Part of the problem is, being trendy, industrial spaces make more money for the landowner as housing than they did as business rentals. As a result, many small businesses are being evicted for housing development.
See: What's wrong with lofts anyway?