California has a weirdly perfect climate, it can get a bit hot but the weather basically always feels nice. I went on a road trip hiking through several national parks there and the ambient humidity and temperature made it feel like I was indoors at all times, not an exaggeration, it was kinda surreal.

It was probably even better before they fucked it all up inducing a permanent drought due to over-irrigation. Still, it's not hard to understand why they have towns there named "Paradise".

Their climate basically provides an automatic boost to general happiness, and while they are destroying their state with over-farming, the farms themselves are beautiful, just driving through miles and miles of vineyards is a fun experience in itself. Both the national parks, and forests there are gorgeous and most importantly diverse. The mountains and forests in my state aren't bad, but they all fit the same general template. Meanwhile in California they really have a different vibe from one to the next, it's like the perfect region for casual hikers.

Then you start to consider infrastructure. Where I live in the North East, winter means all roads, bridges and buildings are all slowly eroded every year and require constant maintenance and refurbishment, this requires a certain consistency from government. California doesn't really need to worry about this though, their stable climate means their roads are pretty much a one-and-done kind of thing, so they even do fancy stuff like having periodic emergency telephones along the way.

But this also leads to complacency, they do in fact need to manage their forests, but don't. Hence why the town named "Paradise" literally burned to the ground. It's a weird state but the good comes with the bad, with it being the entire pacific coastline, their economy prosperity was basically guaranteed no matter how much they mismanage it.