EDITORIAL NO WAY, NO HOWE NEXT PLANNING DIRECTOR MUST BE A VISIONARY, NOT A BUREAUCRAT.

IN many ways, Los Angeles is on the cusp of becoming a new city. But what that new city is and will look like isn't necessarily set in stone. It depends very much on the decisions, big and small, the city's leaders make.

With the right leadership, it could become the model city of the 21st century. Without it, the home of urban sprawl very possibly will become unlivable, a textbook example of What Not To Do for urban architects for years to come.

One of these decisions is coming up this month: The replacement for Planning Director Con Howe, who is retiring as soon as his successor is picked.

This is a unique opportunity to bring in an outsider with a vision of a great city, someone who understands that the heart and soul of Los Angeles is in its long-neglected neighborhoods, someone who puts the regeneration of community life ahead of the downtown monumentalism that has robbed the city of its vitality for decades.

Los Angeles deserves a planning director who can provide bold, fresh, inspiring and innovative leadership - not another humdrum bureaucrat who knuckles under to self-serving politicians, egotistic fat cats and greedy unions and developers.

Neighborhood councils in the San Fernando Valley and across the city have taken up this cause as well, recognizing how the Planning Department rides roughshod over their interests. At the City Council's planning and land use committee last week, many activists crowded in to make their case for someone who will work with, not against, the community.

It's not much to ask for, yet for years the city planners have operated more as an advocate for special interests than as servants of the public.

Now, in the early part of the 21st century, is the time for Los Angeles to finally grow up into the kind of city it could and should be. A commitment to real leadership to guide the city's development is critical to the city's future.