L A Live -- Moving Forward -- or is it ???

Los Angeles, city of enclaves, is methodically, unapologetically building itself one more. The massive $2.5-billion, 4-million-square-foot L.A. Live project on the southern edge of downtown won't be complete for another year and a half or so. But its extensive second phase, much of which will open to the public this weekend, seems to rule out for good the prospect that L.A. Live might bring a fresh, forward-looking model of mega-development to downtown. Even by the rather forgiving standards of a city whose leaders -- and whose public, for that matter -- demand little from developers when it comes to civic-minded design, the project is relentlessly focused on creating its own wholly separate commercial universe: a brighter, more strategically frenzied place than the world outside its doors.