There isn't really a concept of civic pride any more. The Victorians - for all their many faults - did have a kind of local-scale pseudo-patriotism which motivated some very impressive buildings.
When modernism decided that decoration was superfluous and forbidden, it also did a lot of damage to the tradition of civic building.
Buildings were no longer designed to be aesthetic. If private, they were supposed to be utilitarian money factories put up by capital as cheaply as possible for the generation of more capital. Or they were supposed to fill a social need - again, as cheaply as possible.
A few architects, like Calatrava, produce public statement buildings, but they're often poorly regarded and not necessarily designed to wear well. (Calatrava has a very striking visual style but is notorious for poor build quality.)
Modern corporate HQs - like Amazon's and Apple's - half buck the trend, but only half. They're modernist statement buildings, but they're still motivated by a kind of minimalist corporate narcissism rather than pride.
The only buildings that don't fit the trend are some of the religious mega-projects. They're designed to be awe-inspiring and spectacular, and they often are.
So the real culprit is penny-pinching modernist utilitarianism - mostly capitalist, but not exclusively. If you removed that you could recreate a 21st century aesthetic of imaginative but robust civic architecture at all scales, with high quality materials and handcrafted detailing and decoration.
In a very literal sense the entire culture is run on an ethic of ever-narrowing acquisitive miserliness. This started to become a serious problem in the 80s, and it's been hugely dispiriting - not just for the arts but for civics in every respect.