I would guess the answer is not very often, because car parks tend to be set out of sight behind buildings, so you get a view of their backs, which is never that salubrious.
But car parks can be hit-or-miss, because there is usually one in the centre of a town that is in an attractive setting and from which you can see the castle, cathedral, town hall, park, or whatever is the town's best feature well displayed.
This is where you will find the council has spent some effort and resources on making a good impression on the first-time visitor.
For instance, Angel Hill in Bury St Edmunds is surrounded by attractive buildings and has been nicely landscaped, retaining the strange sign in the centre.
It contrasts with Ram Meadow, which has little to offer the visitor in terms of photographic opportunities, and is therefore more ramshackle.
Unfortunately in Haverhill, the opposite seems to have come about.
I was thinking this the other day as I walked by the new Cleales car park.
Here is as nice a view as Haverhill has to offer, across the excellent new landscaping to the grand front of Gurteen's factory.
It makes an impression – but I doubt if any newcomer to the town would find it.
Instead they find Jubilee Walk car park, which is in a pretty hopeless position anyway, aggravated by the awful bus station, the backs of High Street buildings and the ugly 1970s Co-op store (not their fault, Sainsbury's built it).
Here St Edmundsbury has also spent quite a bit of money traying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with very little success.
Regular readers of this column may remember a year or so ago that I was moved to write about the ugliness of this approach to Haverhill town centre when I viewed it from the highly unusual (for me) perspective of a bus passenger arriving from a delightful journey through the villages from Clare.
The same experience was related in the Observer article I referred to a couple of weeks ago, this time travelling from Saffron Walden.
If the town centre master plan devised relatively recently had been adhered to, much of this would be turned into a shallow lake, which might superficially appear a good idea, until you consider the potential effects of fly-tippers, vandals and hot summers on the vista, and the fact that the general surroundings would remain much the same.
The idea for a range of shops along the top of the car park, backing onto the High Street, could have improved that a bit, but it's a losing battle.
Surely it would be better to go back to the old idea of developing the car park for retail, and directing people into other car parks around the town with rather more attractive viewpoints.
I suspect the Tesco car park, raised up as it will be, will have a pleasant perspective over the town centre in at least one direction.
The arts centre car park looks reasonable now, apart from the eyesore of the back of some High Street premises, and leads into the Cleales one.
This again needs attention to the view on the High Street side, and far more access points into High Street should be created, to make it as convenient as the Jubilee Walk one.
It is not impossible to achieve, because look how the Lower Downs Slade car park, created out of an ugly bit of land and a portable building library, is now quite prepossessing and very accessible.
If we are going to encourage local people to shop locally, impressing them (or at least not disgusting them) with their first view of the town is a vital first step to persuading them to come back again.