by conservative local politics

Its still far behind cities/metros like LA and the Bay Area though, and the county as a whole is much more republican, especially in the suburbs. For example, LA already has like 4 transit projects under construction right now which will be opening this year and the next few years, and already has like 10 more that already have funding thanks to Measure M that was passed in 2016. San Diego...is doing literally nothing right now for transit extensions, and part of the reason is that county voters killed a transit sales tax measure increase in 2016 (by a sizable margin outside the margin of error), and similar measures in 2020 and 2022 didn't even make the ballot. Like its gotten to a point where a county supervisor actually reached out to Elon on twitter and asked him to build his bs instead.

As for building housing, its still extremely politically unpopular, as you see nimbys constantly protest new developments, and Nextdoor in particular is notoriously nimby.