Cities spend money on all sorts of things -- their own tax revenues, as well as grants from higher levels of govenment (state and local). If you look at the incentive structures of most local governments, their leadership wants to be seen as "doing something". This usually translates into big, tangible projects, particularly "infrastructure", that's "large" and that ordinary people can understand: bridges, malls, stadiums, etc.
Coming from venture tech, these projects are mind-bogglingly expensive. Even a mid-size office building costs millions to construct. 10-20 stories, big underground garages, easily into $xx or even $100 million, or more. These aren't pie-in-the-sky numbers, my wife is a practicing San Francisco architect. It costs $60-70 million to build a 200-unit "affordable" apartment building with ground-floor retail. That's like 5-10 mid-sized series As. Just to build a damn building.
Point being, in my conversations with the city government, they all sort of know there's something going pretty right in these coastal cities -- many places would kill to have the tax base and jobs of a place like Austin, or San Francisco -- they really just don't know _how_ to facilitate that. So much city government is wrapped up in tangible infrastructure like business parks, highways, and shopping centers when the things I most need, as someone building a technology company, is a nice, walkable downtown, easy-to-lease commercial real estate (not landlords that require 10-year terms, 20 years of operating history, and AAA credit), a reasonably responsive government, fast broadband, a few decent coffeeshops and restaurants, and nice people. None of these things are especially expensive and given how dysfunctional a lot of the coastal cities have become, it's not hard for a lot of places to provide. They just need to know _how_.