And it's open: The LA Times visits the Nokia Theater in downtown, which opened with a bang last night. Dixie Chicks, Eagles, et al. Ah, but the eternal question: Can a big hunk of neon rejuvenate downtown or will it just draw suburbanites who head back home at the end of the night, leaving the city's dreams of building a pedestrian-friendly centerpiece unrealized? Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of the planning department at UCLA, has been studying the matter, actually. "It's still not well proven that these projects do much to rejuvenate downtowns, other than to bring some tax money to the city coffers." Crap. On the plus side, city planners required that all the businesses there face public streets, and that all restaurants offer sidewalk dining. There's also a knee-jerk negative Joel Kotkin quote to pull the air out of everything, notes blog Downtown.
· L.A. theater's effect an open question [LA Times]
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