^Well, in the case of Santa Barbara, that's entirely by design. The development process here (even in the case of single family homes) is absolutely horrendous. The projects that survive it (particularly any of the commercial variety) are nearly all homogenized into a made up style by all of the various boards that have the power to review such things. There is a long history of that in this town (post 1925 earthquake). Santa Barbara was actually the first city in the US to form an architectural review board. The City after the quake paid many building owners to re-skin their buildings to look more like 'Old Spain'. There was a 'Community Drafting Room' run by volunteer architects and designers that would even provide free plans and drawings.
The style is referred to as 'Spanish Colonial Revival', but it draws many of it's influences from Moorish and Gothic vernacular, all clad in rough plaster and capped with 2-piece terra cotta mission tile.
State Street in the early 20's looked much more Victorian era. There's actually only 1 Victorian facade left on the street. There are a handful of buildings downtown from various other 20th century eras, but they are very few and far between.
It's definitely unique, and yet at the same time, it's absolutely maddening as an architect. We actually joke about the 'six shades of white' that we are allowed to use.
The natural setting of this city is really hard to beat though...
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Even if you are 1 in a million, there are still 8,000 people just like you...
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