What you're neglecting in your argument is the weather of central coastal CA. Not only is it far more temperate, it also lacks the constant threat of hurricanes or blizzards. Small earthquake chance, but nothing serious so far. There's a reason the deep south is so cheap - no one wants to summer in our heat and humidity! And very few people enjoy surviving the winters of Detroit.

Cities expand, there's no such thing as non-sustainable growth for a city. Cities can easily go vertical. If cities didn't expand during our parents and grandparents generation they'd just be the farms. It would be quite different landscape if the NIMBY group had clout back then.

Society moves forwards, people who want to "preserve" really don't want us to move forward. Whether they are killing mass transit plans because they want to "preserve" their small city culture or not allowing the building of high-density housing to meet the demands to our ever growing population.

Preserve is even more sinister as it uses justify racism and oppression or south likes to refer to as "preserving their southern culture" as they fly confederate flags and put up statues of Confederate leaders.