No LA currently is the worst of both worlds, an unwalkable, undrivable suburb as far as the eye can see. The best thing that could happen to it is to become a real city.
Second city I had visited in the US. Got a hotel room near Hollywood because that seemed like a decent idea as a tourist for a long weekend. On the first day I find that parking is $60/night. So I park a half mile away where it's closer to $10 and walk. That half mile turns into close to thirty minutes of walking because it involves crossing roads with three lanes in either direction. So I decide to try public transport: except for that there's no metro line near West Hollywood, buses take exact change only and I can't find one to begin with, and to get a TAP card I have to drive to the nearest vendor anyway which doesn't sell TAP cards past 5pm. Fine, so I'll drive. Except for that I have to take route 10 or 101 to get anywhere, both of which are almost always at a standstill. In the evening I decide to go drinking and realise I HAVE to get an uber.
So I can't drive, can't walk, can't use public transport...admittedly I booked a hotel in a bad location for sightseeing since it was very last minute, but I have NEVER had any issues with getting around European and Asian cities in similar situations.
Only typing this out because this is how I'm guessing a very large percent of tourists see LA: it's an absolutely beautiful city completely ruined by the fact that you can't see any of it easily.
Given the population as it is now, I think "unwalkable, undrivable" is a bit of an overstatement or people simply wouldn't live here.
Also as a short proof, Japan and Taiwan are also directly on top of a fault line. Taipei and Tokyo have some of the tallest buildings in the world. The tech is there.
Tokyo is bigger than LA and NYC put together.