EDITORIAL : HOORAY FOR VALLEYWOOD ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY'S GROWTH BENEFITS THE VALLEY AND CHALLENGES IT, TOO.

ONE of the bright spots on the economic scene, especially for the San Fernando Valley, is the strong growth of the entertainment industry and allied businesses.

The boom is good for all of Southern California, of course, but in particular it represents economic vitality for the Valley, which has a hefty chunk of the region's movie and television studios - in Burbank, Universal City and Studio City - as well as related enterprises like caterers, lumber suppliers, stunt performers, talent agents and innumerable others.

``Hollywood is the Valley, there is no doubt about it. We're all in show businesses one way or another,'' attorney Howard Weitzman, executive vice president of corporate operations for MCA Inc., said earlier this month at the Valley Industry and Commerce Association's eighth annual Business Forecast Conference.

The motion picture industry, which has been in the Valley nearly 70 years, is showing signs of explosive growth almost everywhere.

MCA has a master plan to more than double its Universal City operations by 2020, potentially adding 13,000 jobs there, not counting some 27,000 construction jobs during the expansion period, which could pump more than $1.5 billion a year to the local economy.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. and Disney studios, both also located in Burbank, have their own expansion projects, too. Nearby, NBC plans to expand its Burbank studios, adding new offices and additional sound stages over the next decade or two. That would create perhaps 5,000 new jobs, but also such side-effects as more traffic congestion.

One of the greatest challenges involved in these developments is for fruitful collaboration to occur between businesses, property owners, community representatives and local government. A goal must be agreement on a reasonable plan for streets, traffic signals, interchanges, parking facilities and alternative transportation options. Another goal must be limitation of noise and other intrusive effects.

A different kind of challenge is in the area of education. There is a pressing need for schools and colleges to step up their efforts, in conjunction with the entertainment and high-tech industries, to instruct a new generation in the skills to do the jobs that are becoming available in this booming sector.

That's doubly important because the Valley is home not only to film and television production, but also home turf for many cutting-edge companies in the multimedia field - far outnumbering such companies in the Silicon Valley or elsewhere.

If adverse environmental effects of these developments can be addressed to a reasonable extent, and if the education system can successfully prepare the next generation of L.A. adults to occupy rewarding jobs in the new, high-tech version of Hollywood in the Valley, then many people will say it's well worth the traffic and other problems that result from accelerated expansion of the studios and the rest of the Valleywood infrastructure.