Over the centuries New York gained control over neighboring counties. In SF nothing like that ever happened, so SF itself is tiny and surrounded by the edges of

Over the centuries New York gained control over neighboring counties. In SF nothing like that ever happened, so SF itself is tiny and surrounded by the edges of many different large counties that do whatever they want. Also the Bay Area takes anti-development NIMBYism as a sort of state religion – people actually actively try to block development of mass transit, something that would be unthinkably absurd to someone used to NY.