Maybe he means LA greater-area. LA is huge, like really huge. Also LA is more like houses/villas vs. studios/dwellings.

Weather, food, life, people, rent price, etc. is my guess.

LA is 4 million people, SF 800k people. There are very different cities.

> SF 800k people

I did not know that SF was actually that tiny. I guess influence is not necessary proportional to size.

SF is more dense than LA, and the Bay Area as a whole is comparable to the LA area in terms of population. Fun fact, the most populous city in the Bay Area (and NoCal) is actually San Jose, not SF.