Outside SF proper, the SV urban design is as bad as in Utah.
I spent most of my time in Eden and Ogden so I don't know anything about SLC's urban design beyond my impression of the sprawl from brief visits. Personally, I think terrible urban design is the norm in the US (in no small part to suburban sprawl) and SF/Bay Area are easily some of the worst offenders in my limited experience. I can't really think of any well designed cities in California because the vast majority are parts of huge metropolitan areas where everything is so spread out that you end up driving through five or more different towns each with their own geographies and philosophies on urban design just on your daily commute.
I think I'm heavily biased though, because most of the old cities in Europe seem to me to be far better despite their chaotic growth over many centuries.
Alas, President Young had long since exhausted his outrageously lavish budget of divine providence just getting to Utah.
You can just look at neighboring Mexico with 1/6th the per capita income and correspondingly lower public budgets where transportation, urban maintenance, and quality of city life are routinely better. And not just relatively better: Mexican cities (outside the shady border region) are nicer than American cities to live in. If you could put a typical neighborhood from Puebla or Guadalajara or León or Mexico City into Dallas or Los Angeles or San Jose or Atlanta, it would be the best, nicest neighborhood in the city.
And that's not even bringing up the great cities of Europe at all. Because that would be completely unfair.
It's like the health care system: Even a great country does some things horribly wrong and suffers for it.
Next time, get out on foot and see the city. You can't see anything from a car. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r83MF9BRZA&feature=youtu.be