It's mostly environmental and zoning regulations. Lots of California cities like punishing their citizens with environmental or historical regulations with citi

It's mostly environmental and zoning regulations. Lots of California cities like punishing their citizens with environmental or historical regulations with cities like SF being the poster child of the latter and LA as well as San Diego having a lot of the former. Somewhere along the way it got decided that memories of the past and swamps matter more than making it as east as possible to provide infrastructure so now infrastructure is lagged.