Steve Lopez | POINTS WEST - Good signs downtown, but vision still lacking

When I leave my office in the early evening, the downtown Los Angeles of years past is but a memory. People who live in transformed, long-abandoned buildings and trendy new towers are on foot, heading here and there and nowhere in particular.

The new and much-celebrated Ralphs, whose disciples are no less reverential than those who flock to Harrod's in London, has international wine tastings where no one drinks out of a brown paper sack. And I think it's generally a good sign that there are now more dogs than humans urinating on downtown sidewalks.

I like much of what I see. And with all this commerce and more to come, the potential benefits to the rest of the city (from shared tax revenue) and to the whole region (from new attractions around Staples Center and on Grand Avenue) are huge.

But there's just as much potential for disaster. Pardon me for popping a few party balloons, but somebody has to.

In typical L.A. fashion, mega-developments and the redrawing of the skyline are underway with little in the way of long-term vision or planning. It's the same old let's-try-this-and-see-what-happens approach, with developers in the driver's seat.

Although public officials and the media spun last week's downtown zoning changes as a boon for desperately needed affordable housing, there is in fact no requirement that a single such unit be built -- there are merely incentives that developers may or may not choose to take advantage of.

As usual, the impact on traffic was not a consideration in any of this. Nor is anyone admitting that downtown will scare most people away until there's a commitment to build, and scatter across the region, enough supportive housing to clean up skid row once and for all.

And then there's the greenery problem.

Why do dogs do their business on sidewalks? Because there's nowhere else for them to go. Where are the pocket parks? Where are the benches for people to sit with a cup of coffee and a newspaper and watch the world go by?

Rather than do something about it, the geniuses at City Hall have just given developers the right to reduce the space between buildings and to squeeze up even closer to sidewalks.

"Everybody is talking about the need for more parks," said Ian Barnard, a downtown resident and an English professor at Cal State Northridge.