The article is worth reading in full for what it says about the Times' self-image. Further down, the critic discloses some of his opinions about architecture. The symbolic level is where architecture itself kicks in. When it does, land use rises above the level of real estate speculation.
Buildings earn the space they occupy on other than economic terms.
This approach interprets architecture as something more akin to oil painting than to architecture. In fact, the best architecture critics realize this. The author Jane Jacobs, for instance, thought deeply about the economics of cities as well as their structures, and she understands the way the two are inextricable. The New Yorker's Paul Goldberger understands the way that personalities of builders and patrons shape buildings and neighborhoods, and you can tell from his writing that he thinks this is important, not merely on a symbolic or metaphorical level, but to the individuals who use buildings and live in neighborhoods. The Boston Globe's Robert Campbell constantly considers price and value and people and politics when he writes about buildings and plans, instead of sneering at those matters from the lofty realm of a preference for writing about metaphor and symbolism.