The Next L.A. / Reinventing Our Future : The Economy : Residents who flinched at growth and development during boom times will have to weigh their views anew.

It wasn’t so long ago that Southern Californians took their economy for granted. Sure, it was young and a little wild--but it performed the most amazing feats.

Who thought the mid-life crisis would hit so soon?

“We’ve got to do an agonizing rethinking,” declares Larry Kimbell, director of economic forecasting at UCLA. “What are the trade-offs, and where do they lie?”

The climate that created prosperity wasn’t just 72-degree sunshine.

It was a rough-and-tumble landscape peopled by deal-making, hustling individualists. They thrived in exquisite independence, aloof to each other and unbridled by bureaucracy.

Now, the rules are going to change, because of forces bigger than any natural disaster. A bonafide economic rebirth, creating wealth and opportunity for millions of Californians, will require interdependence, a radical credo for the nation’s most fragmented society.

Recovery alone--and the date is uncertain--will not mean economic salvation, most economists believe.

That is a troubling, new state of affairs. Jobs will continue to be scarce and lenders wary. It will take years for property values to regain their past heights.

Employers may continue to eye locations to the north or out of state. Disaster news doesn’t help.

Yet the ingredients of renewal--ideas, energy, people and investment dollars--are here right now, and they are bountiful. The trick is stirring them together in creative new ways, a trick that will mean tough, new choices for residents, business people and public officials.

Business leaders who wish for a revitalized, more unified city may have to donate their own time and effort to neighborhoods, working with schools, clinics, anti-crime programs, you name it.

Longtime Californians might learn lessons from newer immigrant communities if they can blend together more successfully. The Korean kye and Chinese hui are communal credit schemes that free up cash for fledgling enterprises, the sort that displaced aerospace employees might dream of launching.

Residents who flinched at growth and development during boom times will have to weigh their views anew in an era of stubborn unemployment and chronic fiscal crisis.

Advocates of environmental regulation may consider how ill-conceived rules, red-tape snafus and insensitive bureaucracies can chase out new investment.

Hovering over all of these issues is the confusing matter of government’s role in the economy. Neither knee-jerk dismissals of government nor naive faith in the bureaucracy will suffice.

Already, hard-pressed local governments are wooing employers with special tax deals and other incentives. Yet these measures can anger existing employers and, ultimately, are of questionable value, researchers say.

Even enterprise zones, touted as a way to revitalize the inner city through financial incentives for employers, have a mixed track record.

On the plus side, a public-private consortium, fueled with federal funds, has taken the lead in promoting an electric car industry--an uncertain if commendable quest. Experimental public-sector efforts to finance new technologies and provide technical assistance all will be on the table.

Yes, it’s time for soul-searching. But the exercise should neither ignore Southern California’s strengths nor fail to recognize the many promising efforts already under way.

The immigrant population, however controversial and costly for now, is also a source of energy and enterprise. The manufacturing base, while embattled, still employs almost 18% of Los Angeles County workers, a bigger share than in the state or nation.

The region’s role as a key hub in the global economy must surely expand. Even the much-maligned business climate has improved a bit, due to recent tax incentives, changes in workers compensation and other efforts.

No one knows what tomorrow’s great new industry will be. But if it has anything to do with entertainment, technology or information, Angelenos will be at the forefront, exploiting talent and know-how in their own back yard.

Just a few weeks ago, amid a numbing barrage of negative news about the city, an economic development official was marveling at renewed interest in Los Angeles by more than 20 potential employers.

“We were just sitting around and saying, ‘Holy mackerel. What’s going on here?’ ” recalls Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

Common sense suggests that whatever inherent appeal attracted those employers to Los Angeles will last longer than today’s earthquake woes.

But it also suggests the days of rugged individualism are gone forever.