The crazy thing to me is just how ugly urban areas of California are. All around the bay it is just strip mall after strip mall and post-war cheap single family

The crazy thing to me is just how ugly urban areas of California are. All around the bay it is just strip mall after strip mall and post-war cheap single family homes. Other than property values, for the vast majority of the San Francisco Bay area - zoning restrictions solve absolutely nothing. Allowing mixed use zoning around the bay would make the Bay area a much nicer. Likewise in Los Angeles, pretty much everything other than the beach cities and the hollywood hills are a complete eyesore and look like any random suburb on the west coast. Nothing of value would be lost if most parts of LA were demolished to build high rises.