Best wishes to Florida, where the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irma reveals a state that shares an admirable propensity for enduring natural disasters on par with the blows that strike California from time to time.

And don’t forget Houston, where devastation from the earlier Hurricane Harvey was quickly pushed from the lead news spot.

Houston shares a few characteristics with Los Angeles besides natural disasters and the 10 freeway.

Both have willed themselves into the ranks of top American metro markets.

Both have played historic roles in urban sprawl.

Los Angeles led the way on tearing up a regional transit system of trolleys and trains in exchange for freeways and cars in the wake of World War II.

Houston became famous for a lack of zoning, growing Texas style, unhindered by any need to check whether a hamburger stand or manufacturing plant might fit with a bunch of single-family homes.

Some business folk view Houston’s approach a sensible nod to the wonders of capitalism and the private sector.

You’ll hear more than a few Angelenos and other Californians frustrated with the regulatory regimes of our city and state give the Texas municipality credit for staying out of the way of business.

A couple of counterpoints, starting with recent data that shows California added nearly 52,000 companies in the three years since 2014, a 2.3% increase, according to a recent report by American Express Co. and Dun & Bradstreet Inc. The state did even better in the sweet spot of midsize companies – identified as enterprises with annual revenue between $10 million and $1 billion. California added 5,325 companies in this category, ahead of … second-ranked Texas.

The other point to chew on: Hurricane Harvey claimed at least 50 lives and did an estimated $180 billion in damage, and “almost all the flooding in Houston is the result of poor development decisions,” John Jacob, a professor of watershed science at Texas A&M University, recently told the Wall Street Journal.

An absence of zoning isn’t necessarily responsible for poor development decisions, but it’s not a stretch to draw some correlation.

The same goes for regulations aimed at preserving or fostering a higher quality of life than, say, Californians enjoyed back in the days before air regulators set out to do something about the smog that once burned eyes and even kept kids off playgrounds on numerous days.

Plenty to consider – or reconsider – in the wake of the latest storms.