Staples Central.

Much-Hyped New Arena Not Enough to Revive Downtown L.A.

WE haven't witnessed in decades anything in L.A. close to the hoopla surrounding the opening of Staples Center. Even media outlets renowned for their disdainful take on the local scene have been almost apoplectic in their enthusiasm for the swanky new arena and its potential for turning around our generally disappointing downtown.

In some sense, the resurgent boosterism is kind of refreshing - particularly after a decade during which most media took their lead from the likes of Marxist mythologizer Mike Davis. Yet hopes about Staples may, in this case, be wildly overblown. However grand a place and an idea the arena is, it will not a downtown renaissance make. In fact, many of the very cities that are used by Staples' boosters to prove their point, do exactly the opposite.

Much is said, for example, about how Coors Field sparked a massive resurgence in downtown Denver. The reality is far different.

I used to go to Denver regularly. Its downtown always seemed pretty doughty and boring. Today it is slightly less so. But does it teem with young, adventurous new residents, thrilled to be within shouting distance of the Rockies' field of dreams? Not really. Go to Lower Downtown (LODO), the neighborhood next to the ballpark, when the Rockies are not playing. There's virtually no street life or business and plenty of empty parking spaces.

Since 1990, a total of 700 people, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership, have moved into central districts of the city, including LODO. That's hardly enough to be noticed even at a Clippers game.

Looking more broadly in the immediate vicinity of downtown, the Coors effect is even more stale beer. There are now 6,000 fewer people living in the neighborhoods surrounding the central district than there were in 1980. The action in Denver continues to move farther out, to the Tech Center and beyond.

A more extreme example is St. Louis, which has built a football, hockey and baseball complex downtown - while the center city continues to shrink. In fact, in no city, whether Baltimore, Cleveland or Denver, has an arena or stadium made much of an impact on the overall health of the central city.

Does this mean that Staples was a bad idea? Not necessarily. It is about time Los Angeles had a first-class arena. It may help keep the Grammies here and will certainly enrich our currently dismal sports scene somewhat.

But as for the arena turning around our often equally dismal downtown, I have less hope. Even less so than Coors Field, Staples is not located near anything that would remotely attract new residents or businesses, upscale or otherwise. If it had been built where it should have - that is, atop Union Station's tracks - it would have abutted potential attractions like Chinatown, Little Tokyo and Olvera Street. Nearby historic buildings and warehouses might have attracted some 20 - and 30 - somethings and even a handful of dot-com firms.

There are no such potentialities around Staples now. As is too often the case, political expediency and the seeming L.A. passion for pouring good money after bad (i.e. the Convention Center) led to a politically correct but economically disadvantageous location.

A location in the northern edges of downtown, near the historic core, could have spoken to L.A.'s often-neglected history; as it is, Staples rises only upon a legacy of neglect and poor planning. To enhance the dismal neighborhood, the best the poobahs can come up with is a knockoff of CityWalk. Why bother? We already have one of those.

Staples - as well as the other new downtown edifices such as Disney Hall or the new cathedral - can serve as important monuments. to Los Angeles' resurgence. But they alone cannot make up for the deadliness of many of its blocks - the disconnectedness between its many, often varied and interesting districts.

It is street life - the ability to walk between different neighborhoods, the spontaneity characteristic of a great city - that will bring downtown back. This is what the I 990s resurgence of lower Manhattan, south Boston, and huge swaths of Chicago are really about. Not big buildings with corporate logos or fancy halls or even swank houses of worship, but the pure enjoyment of the urban experience - unpackaged and there for the taking, whether the local teams are playing or not.

The battle to revive downtown Los Angeles should be seen more as trench warfare than blitzkrieg. A great restaurant, an artist's loft, an expanded and accessible wholesale market all mean more to a potential resident - as well as casual visitor - than the occasional evening in a gilded wonderpalace.

I would trade Shaquille O'Neill, as well as the entire Kings and Clippers franchises, for one developer like Tom Gilmore, who is trying to bring interesting new companies and residents back downtown.

This is where the battle for downtown L.A. will be waged, won or lost - on the streets. The center's revival will not be created in the luxury suites of executives who, after a few drinks and yucks, will pile back into their Mercedes Benzes and drive off, having never experienced the real downtown.

Joel Kotkin is a senior fellow with the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy and a research fellow at the Reason Public Policy Institute.