Prop 13 only sees statewide median homeownership period go up slightly in california compared to national average. The real issue is not these edge cases that prop 13 might bring about, but zoning.

Have a look at this graph: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-p...

You can see how even with prop 13, even with various RSO ordinances, even with red tape, even with building code requirements, the demand for development has always been enough to build to the limits of what has been allowed through zoning, ever since cities like LA were widely downzoned in response to redlining being made illegal in the early 1970s and succeeding zoning plans.

It is actually absurd the amount of freeways there are in San Diego. How many north south and east west freeways are there? And they are like sometimes 1 mile or less apart from another parallel running freeway. Then you have all these thick roads where its 6-8 lanes across with a 50 mph speed limit basically freeway capacity right there. Probably the most "built for car" urban area in california IMO, with orange county a close second for basically the same reasons (lot of freeway redundancy and also high capacity high speed roads). LA county would be closer but they never finished their highway master plans and it shows with some of the freeway void spaces where planned freeways were never built for varying reasons. They have those 50mph high speed roads but its limited to the comparatively newer sections of LA county like santa clarita, which is very much built in a "san diegan" way compared to the older san fernando valley.

Agreed it's a bummer.

There's a lot of low-density sprawl in San Diego county which makes effective transit difficult, and because you have to drive everywhere, sentiment trends anti-bicycle. The previous CEO of SANDAG tried to push a mobility-centric vision but left because of intense pushback from folks who wanted more funding for roads and freeways, rather than transit and bike paths.

Infill development used to be allowed in California but it stopped in the early 70s when communities turned to zoning to exclude blacks and browns after redlining was made illegal. The many sundown towns did not go without a fight. There are still some pieces of what that infil looked like. The bog standard brick 5 story building you see all over east coast cities can be found in california in parts, often sticking out like a sore thumb because nothing has been allowed to be built to that height since the late 1960s/early 1970s. The dingbat is another example of infill housing that was since made illegal although it was quite popular. Most blocks you see with some sort of apartments were at one point single family home lots, but this sort of development carefully limited to the blocks you now see them instead of widespread throughout the area.

There was even a time when very large highrises were being constructed e.g. Wilshire Blvd's condo canyon. But that was also seen as a blight and quickly stopped in its tracks from expanding beyond the immediate arterial frontage. All hell would surely break loose if you allowed for student housing to be built on the eastern edge of UCLA instead of contained in the sliver of land between the school and veterans cemetery I guess. Unfortunately for the student body, the school is shoehorned in between two prestigious country clubs, and it is clear where priorities lay among local leadership.