Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I'm with you and I think Brad would agree that duplicate (or even largely duplicate) content would not be the end result behind landing pages dedicated to specific cities.  If I were going to use this technique I would include city-specific content for each page.

Also, when you say 'duplicate title tags' do you mean MOSTLY duplicate title tags (ie Home | California Personal Injury Attorney, and About Us | California Personal Injury Attorney)?   If so, are these really harmful to rankings?

That makes sense Brad, thanks!

So say one of my other clients wants to rank highly for 'California Personal Injury Attorney'.  Should I not add 'California Personal Injury Attorney' to the title tag of every page (eg 'Contact Us | California Personal Injury Attorney', 'Home | California Personal Injury Attorney')?

If I did add this keyword to every title tag, would it damage my client's ranking in the SERP?

If adding the term on all pages then won't the pages start competing with each other in the SERP?

I'm building a site for a client who wants to rank highly for 'Southern California general contractors' and its not clear to me whether to fit these keywords (and variations) only into the homepage or if I should try to fit them into all pages.