I've posted this elsewhere, but take a look at the California Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), which is overlaid on top of the national version (NEPA). I've worked on projects in CA that hit CEPA problems, and the level of bureaucracy can be really hideous.

NIMBY stuff doesn't help either: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... ; that's primarily about housing, but there's a strong "People united against everything" front.

This: http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2011/11/15/no-att-lightspeed-inter... is about San Francisco, but Palo Alto is not exactly known for its developer-friendly environment either.

Jseigler's done a great job of it, but you can ask Google themselves - CA's CEQA process is hell on earth. From the horse's mouth, so to speak:

"Many fine California city proposals for the Google Fiber project were ultimately passed over in part because of the regulatory complexity here brought about by CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] and other rules. Other states have equivalent processes in place to protect the environment without causing such harm to business processes, and therefore create incentives for new services to be deployed there instead."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/04/google-fib...