Tokyo has lax zoning, but it looks the way it does only because people who live there want it to look that way. Houston, which also has loose zoning, looks tot

Tokyo has lax zoning, but it looks the way it does only because people who live there want it to look that way. Houston, which also has loose zoning, looks totally different because most Texans want to live in suburbs and drive cars. In other words, zoning laws are generally an expression of what the majority of people already wanted. I can tell you for sure that in most parts of California (and most of the rest of the USA) the majority of people want to live in a detached single-family home that they own, and prefer driving cars to public transit. People who prefer a denser arrangement are an especially vocal minority on the internet, but if you put it to a vote, you'd end up with pretty much what we have today -- the fact that people wanted them is why they got built in the first place!