No beauty contest winners in the valley.

The Valley is ugly.

There, I've said it and I'm glad.

It probably wasn't any great shakes when the Chumash and the San Gabrielino Native Americans were around. Lots of dry scrub and precious little water, even then.

But at least they didn't import the cypress, palms and other vegetative interlopers that have resulted in a hodgepodge of arboreal looks. And that's not even mentioning that toxic and ubiquitous oleander, a shrub that has morphed into the San Fernando Valley National Plant.

But if we've transgressed against the natural habitat, what we've done with our buildings is the architectural equivalent of a capital crime.

Ripe as they are for ridicule and revulsion, let's not focus on the homes we've constructed, those little cracker boxes built starting in the late '40s, later replaced with the graceful California Ranch style. Now that look is disappearing into mansions too big for their lots and homes whose design is as out of place in their neighborhood as a Bentley would be on Keyes Honda's lot.

Take a look at where we shop.

Our Valley became famous (and perhaps reviled) for popularizing the strip mall, that ugly group of stucco-clad buildings set back from the street and fronted by an asphalt-covered parking lot.

Los Angeles' city planners decided that the best way to develop the Valley was to lay out a grid of major thoroughfares--Ventura, Van Nuys, Roscoe, Sherman Way, etc., and build all the retail and office space along them. No thought was given to creating villages where people could walk to school and to stores; heaven forbid--the car was king and we were its servants.

Today, they call the concept of placing almost everything you could want within walking distance, New Urbanism. But it's not a new idea.

Back in the 1960s, I flew over the nearly 28,000 acres that Walt Disney Productions had just acquired. I looked out the window of the company's Gulfstream as Walt described to me what would be built there.

He was most excited about the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow (EPCOT): a living community, with lots of pedestrian paths and greenery, jobs within walking distance of homes, a place where corporate America could test its latest inventions, and buildings designed to support the human spirit, not overwhelm it.

Walt died in December 1966, before his vision could be realized; sadly, EPCOT was turned into a sort of permanent World's Fair.

So our suburbs keep sprawling and nothing matters but low-density housing that drives people from their homes onto the freeway to distant jobs in ugly buildings.

And then we have our office buildings.

All across the Valley we work in rectangular blocks of concrete and rebar with skins of reflective black glass or some other cold materials, with but one imperative: get as many rentable square feet on the land as possible. And of course, build them as tall as the zoning will allow.

Cole Porter wrote "Don't Fence Me In" in 1942. Well, we've gone and fenced ourselves in with miles of concrete freeways and roadways, undistinguished office buildings and shopping malls, and a near-total disregard for the beauty that comes from preserving and restoring old buildings.

Is it too late to do anything about the mess we've made of things when it comes to urban design, planning and architecture in the Valley?

Mayor Villaraigosa will soon be naming a new Planning Director for Los Angeles. We need a Planning Director who can do two things:

Create a vision for our city and generate support from all constituencies.

Direct the Planning Department to a new way of thinking, or as one of our City Councilmen whispered to me at a recent meeting of elected officials, "We need a Planning Director who will kick butt!"

I wish I lived in that Valley Councilman's district so I could vote for him. We need to get tough on out-of-compliance signs and signs that remain after a tenant vacates a commercial building.

We need to make it worthwhile and laudable to turn an ugly building into one that is pleasing to the eye and beckoning to the shopper.

We need our chambers of commerce, neighborhood councils and homeowners' associations to take a leading role in assuring that what we create enhances our communities. I'm not advocating that they have the right to play Roman emperor and go thumbs up or thumbs down on projects, but why don't those organizations and the Economic Alliance recognize and honor those who renovate, repair and rebuild their properties and those who create visually interesting new ones?

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us."

--Winston Churchill

Martin Cooper is Chairman of Cooper Beavers, Inc., marketing and communications. He is currently Chairman of VICA and Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter and the Encino Chamber of Commerce.