Most decorative city cites improvement (7)

'most decorative' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are superlative adjectives. Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?

'city cites improvement' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'city' could be 'la' (Los Angeles) and 'la' is located in the answer.
an anagram of 'cites' is 'ciest' which is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?