Even if California adds housing, how can it possibly add enough water, roads, schools, parks, etc? It's just trading one crisis for another.
The coastal regions are already over-crowded at current prices. The overall cost is just too high. It's wasteful compared to building in other regions. And, it's unnecessary because so much of modern work can be done remotely.
Instead of allowing 80% of housing at market rate to subsidize 20% low-income housing in an unsustainable growth pattern, California should mandate that large employers offer at least 20% of their office employees the opportunity to work remotely. Creating an escape valve for local demand would slow the growth of housing costs without adding new infrastructure requirements.
for me at least, just seeing numbers go up and get huge (Swarm Simulator) doesn't really do it for me. part of what makes Universal Paperclips so good is that, like Candy Box, a huge part of the joy is uncovering entirely new gameplay systems as you progress. A Dark Room was neat in that it brought the idea of a coherent narrative that you (sometimes subtly) uncover as you progress, too.
I feel like there's a lot of room left to explore in the space: different mechanics and systems to explore (outside of just clicking and upgrading), the possibility of cooperation with other players... the browser-based incremental game is pretty versatile in what it could do.
one of the most interesting one of these I've seen is Parameters (http://nekogames.jp/swf/prm.swf — download & play locally with Ruffle or some other SWF player). it's like an abstract RPG where you go on quests (or something) by clicking squares to fill them up. it's kinda crazy to me that nobody seems to have iterated on this concept.
https://greens-io.appspot.com