The major reason California is expensive isn't because of the things that make it nice to live here, it's because a faux-environmentalist love of sprawl and protection of single family zoning from denser, more sensible housing options for those that want them.

Instead, Californians with high incomes, but not enough to pay the outrageous price for ownership, pay outrageous rents to landlords that repackage unupdated 1970s starter homes at extreme luxury prices.

Once we stop letting landlords exploit productive labor by removing the regulatory capture, the quality of life will increase, merely through allowing more people to experience the higher quality of life. However, reversing that trend is proving extremely difficult, despite fairly widespread support among the voting population.