/blog-gone

Joel Kotkin makes the case against downtowns luxury lofts and residential towers, including those planned for LA. But it isn't all doom and gloom.

In some ways, a sharp drop in downtown residential property values may be the best thing to happen to downtown long term. Well-heeled investors and speculators, no longer confident of flipping their $600,000-plus properties, would have to sell to workers, artists and young professionals, or rent to students, the kind of people who have turned places such as Manhattan's Soho into vibrant street-level neighborhoods.

Even so, don't count on downtown L.A. becoming another Soho. It may never fully compete with the Miracle Mile, West Hollywood, Pasadena or the beach as an urban lure. These areas have fewer dead spots created by freeway ramps, parking lots and government buildings. They offer more attractive pedestrian streetscapes and more places to go. But the right policy and reasonable expectations could transform parts of downtown into an exciting, slightly offbeat alternative community amid L.A.'s vast suburban archipelago.

And really now, that doesn't sound so horrible.