The phrase "painted town" typically implies a town that appears bright, vibrant, and colorful due to its architecture, buildings, or other aspects. Antonyms for this phrase could include bleak, colorless, drab, or dull. Alternatively, it could refer to towns that are marked by a sense of decay, abandonment, or disrepair, such as ghost towns or derelict urban areas. Other possible antonyms could include empty, abandoned, uninhabited, or unpopulated. Depending on the context of the phrase, other opposite terms could be selected to emphasize the stark contrast between the positive associations of a lively town and the negative ones of a desolate or declining one.