Not necessarily. Other cities build more than others. It's a function of built in incentives and legal laws the enable the bad behavior, and california has a particularly bad case of it.

For a quick comparison, look at seattle vs sf. Seattle had similar issues and dealt with it in a far better manner, not wanting to become another SF. They still have issues, true, but the price increase hasn't been as dramatic, and highrises were allowed to be built.

Humanity’s got a lot of problems to face and overcome before packing more of them per city block.

Chief among those problems is having not nearly enough stuff per city block, isolating us from each other and forcing us to drive everywhere.