Stanley Kubrick's vision of the new millennium was the Star Child. Boston's vision is 10,000 conventioneers in white shirts, sky-blue polyester pants and pocket protectors roaming the streets of South Boston looking for a strip bar.

State legislation passed last year is inexorably pushing the city towards construction of a $700 million convention center in South Boston. The state genuflects to the city's say over this by requiring City Council approval of the whole endeavor. But the deadline is March 11th, meaning the Council has less than a month to assess the reasonableness and impact of what is unquestionably a mega-project.

Conventional thinking is that the Council's role is more an annoyance than anything else. Faced with enormous pressure from powerful economic interests, including unions, the tourist industry and a host of well-dressed lobbyists, the Council will simply rubber stamp the whole matter.

But perhaps not. Individual councilors are bothered by the short time frame they have been allowed to assess the project. And there are serious questions that no one has yet adequately asked, much less answered.

The biggest question, of course, is why have a convention center at all? The effect of building a convention center is to change the structure of Boston's economy, making it more dependent than ever on tourism.

The tourism industry argues this is a good thing. Tourism brings in people with money who stay in hotels and go to restaurants. This additional business creates jobs, mostly in the service sector.

Moreover, the industry argues, not having a convention center places Boston at a disadvantage. It's Sigmund Freud as city planner: Boston has a case of convention-envy. Every other big city has a large-scale convention center. We should too.

So how's Boston doing without a convention center? Pretty well it seems. Indeed, it's hard to see how it could do better.

Hotels today are packed. Even without the convention center, Boston has a projected need for thousands more hotel beds over the next few years. The economy is booming and unemployment in the city is extraordinarily low.

Furthermore, the unemployment we have now is not due to failures in the local economy but rather to failures in education and training. The convention center does little to solve those problems. In fact, it may do the opposite because it takes away money that Boston could use for its schools.

The city proposes to fund its share for the convention center through hotel taxes, the sale of new taxicab medallions and a tax on car rentals. This will be foregone money; money the city could have used to improve its educational system. And the city takes a risk as well. If the new taxes don't produce the money needed, then Boston will have to dip into its general revenue stream, cutting programs so that the convention center stays afloat.

Another possible rationalization for the convention center is that it is countercyclical — that it diversifies Boston's economy so it better rides out a recession. But convention-going declines during recessions; financially strapped companies often target convention attendance as a frill easily eliminated when times are tough.

There are other concerns as well. In particular, the convention center imposes real costs on South Boston. There's no question that it will adversely affect existing neighborhoods. But it also forecloses other opportunities to develop the area, including the very real possibility of expanding the residential component of South Boston.

The bottom line seems to be that the case for the convention center is a middling one. It won't save the city; indeed, the city has no burning need for that kind of salvation. The Council over the next few weeks would do well to ask some hard questions, insist on good answers and resist efforts to railroad the whole thing through.