ANGELENOS SHOULD SLOW DOWN, ADMIRE RADIANT URBAN CORE; REDEVELOPERS WOULD BENEFIT FROM STROLL IN L.A.'S HEART.

Byline: Richard Nemec

DESPITE Southern California's historic urban inferiority complex, downtown Los Angeles - and there is a downtown L.A., remember - features an increasing amount of usable, friendly public space in which the human element of a city is allowed to show itself.

I mention the inferiority complex because I think it affects Los Angeles' urban core from two directions. Outside, it is spawned by the historic comparisons to the cosmopolitan and sophisticated image of San Francisco, undeniably one of the world's prettiest cities, although a gritty one. And Los Angeles suffers from within - surrounded by the late-20th century creations of midurban centers, such as Century City, Universal City, Old Town Pasadena and nuevo-Santa Monica/Westwood.

All of these areas and cities have lots of walking, talking and sitting space outside. People can hang out without getting rousted by the cops in most cases. But they can do this in downtown Los Angeles, too. And they do! Too many people, however, don't notice or don't care.

It's there in the core of Los Angeles, and the people who know it best are the tourists and the more recently arrived Latino and Asian residents. A lot of them have young children and carry cameras or Walkman music machines. They spend time not inside the theaters, which many of them cannot afford, but outside on the Music Center's surrounding patios.

When it comes to cities and something as ephemeral as what constitutes a real downtown, I tend to trust my own eyes, ears and feet rather than the reports from local government bureaucrats. Therefore, I am not dissuaded by the likes of the once-mighty, but now humbled, Community Redevelopment Agency, whose influence peaked along with the building boom and downtown office rents in the mid- to late-1980s.

The CRA, which has the job of helping continually plan our rebirth as a city, has published strategic plans in which it examined everything from preservation of historical sites, to retail business development to urban-based housing. In recent years one of those tomes declared that Los Angeles' downtown has ``the smallest amount of public open space of any major U.S. urban center,'' although it noted that a lot of private building-related parks and plazas have been created in recent years.

While well-meaning, I think the CRA assessment is hogwash. Again, I trust my own experience before some dust-collecting report. Although I live and work on the western edge of Los Angeles around Santa Monica Airport, I have both business and leisure reasons to venture to downtown Los Angeles regularly. Just two of L.A.'s many downtown plazas - both public, not private - would put what's available in most metropolitan areas' urban cores to shame.

I'm talking about the Los Angeles Music Center's open, outdoor plaza areas around its three theaters and the gardens and the open space west of the newly rehabilitated Central Library complex. Both are clean, safe and used by thousands of pedestrians daily, including on weekends. On numerous occasions - both alone and with others - I have had lunch or coffee in these friendly urban oases.

The combination of fountains, plants, benches and walkways, along with a steady stream of people of all ages, gives a radiance to Los Angeles that most of us are too busy to recognize.

My wife and I have sat on the Music Center plaza, having coffee before a matinee performance at one of the theaters, and enjoyed the steady stream of tourists who dismount their buses to frolic in and around the large water-splashing fountain and to take one another's photos with the Chandler Auditorium and the L.A. skyline in the background. Even on the hottest, smoggiest days, there seems always to be a westerly breeze in these two plazas.

When I have been in the area on weekday business, I have made it a point to stop at one or both of these outdoor areas, often to buy a sandwich and a drink for a leisurely, solitary lunch.

If you take away Central Park, New York City has nothing that compares.

San Francisco's recent South of Market Street urban redevelopment is eclipsing what Los Angeles has been able to do, serving as a useful model if Los Angeles' South Park and Seventh Street retail corridors are ever to fully develop. But San Francisco's financial or civic centers don't compare with Los Angeles' core, and Golden Gate Park is not part of the urban center.

Chicago, with its lake front, and Washington, D.C., with its history-driven Mall, are the only two major cities with better public space for downtown denizens. There is only one Lake Michigan and one national capital, so I think Los Angeles need not feel underprivileged.

Within walking distance of Los Angeles' Music Center and Central Library, there is other ``hidden'' public and private open space attached to various government, private and historical sites. It has been my experience that more people are discovering and using the open space.

I would suggest that a new job requirement for all CRA employees be that they walk around a new part of the downtown area every week. They may learn something about the city that they are trying so hard to shape.