Gentrification is reaching new depths in all corners of South Central Los Angeles. From dozens of new condo developments to the Los Angeles Rams moving to nearby Inglewood, the combination of rising property values and the lack of rent control has put increasing pressure on the historically African American neighborhood. Located right in the middle of numerous working-class neighborhoods, USC has taken no small role in reshaping the landscape of the South L.A. community. Most notably, its $700 million Village construction project has arguably contributed to the community’s struggle with gentrification.

Completed in 2017, the project is massive in scope, adding three million square feet of student housing, retail, green space, and academic space into the USC territory. As of today, the Village infrastructure contains more than 15 eateries, a pharmacy, a Target, a Trader Joe’s, and several service providers including repair shops and beauty services. 

At the same time high-end retail amenities were introduced to students and local residents, local businesses that once occupied the site were forced to close their stores and leave the area, many of which had served students and community members for decades. The beloved Lil Bill’s bike service shop, where all USC students and faculty got their tires pumped and bikes repaired, was one of many businesses that were driven out by the university during previous iterations of the Village.

The bike shop owner Aaron Flournoy was told by the school administration to move his business away from the campus shortly after the renovation of the Village, where he and his family had provided services for the USC community for over 40 years.

“They are always talking about how they want to help the small business people in the community,” Flournoy said. “But we all come to find out that that’s not true.”

The closure of Flournoy’s business was a result of a non-compete clause signed by USC and the high-end Sole bike shop that opened at Village. The university asked him to relocate to the outskirts of campus after his service was replaced by Sole. Flournoy was later offered a position at Sole, which he also declined. “I’m in a business for myself,” he said, adding that the university’s decision was “a stab in the back” to people in the community.

“Why not help the small businessman? Why not offer Lil Bill’s an opportunity to have a shop in the Village? Why not offer that to the people in the community, not just me but many other small businesses that were around here trying to survive?”

—— Aaron Flournoy

It was at this point that Flournoy realized the university would never compromise with him, nor would he compromise with USC. Flournoy decided to turn his business into a mobile shop so that he could stick around to continue serving students on campus, regardless of USC’s support. Nevertheless, his business slowed down dramatically as he lost the comparative advantage of staying at his old spot in the Village.

“There were a lot of small businesses that never came back. Their businesses shut down because they couldn’t survive,” said Flournoy. “I’m just one of the ones that just keep pushing and pushing and trying to make it. I haven’t given up the fight.”

Prior to the opening of the Village, fears of displacement already arose among local residents and community members. Housing advocates expressed their concerns that retail amenities in the USC Village including high end restaurants and Trader Joe’s would transform the neighborhood and alienate low-income residents gradually. To mitigate fears that the expansion to the area will raise the already unacceptably high cost of housing, the university made a $20 million contribution to Los Angeles’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Introduced in 2011 by the university’s then president C. L. Max Nikias, the campus expansion plan proposed an unusual public-private partnership that made commitments to remake the local neighborhood. This also included a $16 million fire station built on university land and at no cost to the city. In addition, the university guaranteed that 30 percent of the workers on the project will be hired from the surrounding area.

According to an Annenberg Media special report published on Feb 22, 2018, while the university achieved its local hiring goals for construction, particularly when constructing the firehouse across the street from USC Village, it fell well short of its commitment to small businesses. The university pledged to provide development training for 40 small enterprises, but the program really worked with only 14, and only one of them was designated local by the University’s own standards. 

Theodora Oyie, a community outreach specialist, was hired by the university contractor on the Village project to help meet the school’s 30 percent local hiring of construction workers at a time when USC had greatly fallen behind its goal. According to her, USC failed to keep a certain amount of retail spaces for local small businesses in Village because the team leader they hired to facilitate that effort was uninterested in executing the vision and decided not to bring back many of the local diverse businesses that had been there. 

Following the demolition and renovation of USC Village, the university did attempt to assist vendors in relocating, but it was insufficient to keep the majority of them. USC paid a total of $342,000 in relocation assistance to 21 businesses, according to the same Annenberg report. Of those that received relocation assistance, Village Cobbler was the only tenant to return to the Village.

Not only weren’t local small businesses allowed to come back but also university programs that once housed at Village, such as USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI). Working at the school’s college preparation program for almost ten years, Ivonne Rodriguez said the university wasn’t able to bring the NAI office back to USC Village after its renovation. It was a great pity, according to Rodriguez, because this would otherwise create a space of belonging for families and participants in the program to visit and access college resources when they get tutoring after school at Village.

“There was a commitment. And it didn’t appear that USC was resolute and continued to follow up on their commitment that they made to the community after the community extended a lot of support,” Rodriguez added.

Walking around USC Village today, one notices more students walking to and from class than families stopping for lunch. Instead of serving students and community members equally, USC has clearly shifted its emphasis solely on the student body. However, not even all the students have enjoyed the benefits and resources that the Village is supposed to provide due to its luxury development over the past six years. Today, a drink at Cafe Dulce will cost you over six dollars at Village. And that price level is more than normal there.

Jazmin Gallegos, a junior studying environmental studies at USC, said she seldom went to any Village restaurant even during her time living at its largest student residential building, Cowlings and Ilium. Regardless of the close proximity to retail amenities, Gallegos said the high prices kept her from day-to-day consumption at Village.

“It is only targeted towards USC students who come from more affluent backgrounds,” said LeeAnna Villarrea, a current USC senior who had the same concern that the school had pushed out community members since the Village renovation.

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Why didn’t people access Village anymore?

Listen to their answers.

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According to a survey published by the Equality of Opportunity Project in 2017, the median household income of a USC student is $161,400. According to the 2017 census, the median income in the 90007 zip code area around the university was $23,070. With the average USC student’s purchasing power greatly exceeding most local households in the area, the huge disparity made it more challenging for the Village project to be mutually beneficial to one of California’s poorest areas and one of its wealthiest universities.

The old USC Village, on the other hand, was “one of the few locations around campus that also served the greater community, which shared it with sheltered USC students,” said Rachel Will, a former USC student. Occupying the site north of the campus, the old Village once housed an aging strip mall anchored by a movie theater and discount supermarket, all of which were very accessible and affordable to community members. 

Jaime Carias, an all-time resident in South L.A. and former civic engagement coordinator at USC Annenberg school, had deep emotional connections with the old Village, as he recalled jumping around movies all day with childhood friends by paying a little amount at the movie theater, playing games at the arcade, and buying food from the market at an inexpensive price. Carias was not the only one to feel such connection. Rodriguez, who has lived in the University Park area her whole life, called it “a place of belonging that builds histories and memories.”

But USC has flipped the entire neighborhood now. As the school’s largest building project and the most expansive development project in the history of South Los Angeles, the Village construction was projected to inject $5.2 billion into the local economy in its initial review, according to the school. Following the greater investment opportunity, however, was unchecked rapid expansion that features skyrocketed rent rates and displacement of local residents.

In the years after the Village construction, the influx of housing development companies such First Choice Housing and Tripalink drove the average rent in the area up by enticing USC students into renting short-term sublets at over-charged monthly rates. Now, whenever there is a house being remade or a new apartment being built, it almost always has a sign that says—“Now leasing to students,” as recalled by Flournoy, who not only worked but also lived within the two-mile radius of the campus his whole life.

As a result, many local residents and families were forced to relocate, as the new apartment buildings were reserved for students at a rent price that the community could not compete with.

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Multi-family home reality in South L.A.

“I couldn’t afford to live here if I wouldn’t been fortunate enough to purchase my home when I did.”

— Ivonne Rodriguez

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USC did attempt to deal with apprehensions arising in surrounding neighborhoods. As part of USC Civic Engagement, USC Gould Law professor Deepika Sharma founded the Housing Law and Policy Clinic in 2015. Its client services include provision of free professional legal services to community residents in the areas of housing discrimination, local affordable housing issues, and landlord/tenant dispute resolution.

In addition, with the Good Neighbors Campaign, USC has been providing financial assistance to support university-community partnerships involving school staff and local nonprofits aiming at making a positive impact on the neighborhoods surrounding USC campuses. One example of the university’s efforts to address residents’ needs amidst all the controversy during Village construction was a total of $50,000 grant to help local residents join unions by paying for registration and licensing fees, tools and other resources, according to Oyie. 

Despite the community excitement and positive feedback the school received during Village construction, Oyie attributed the current gentrification crisis to the school’s failure to sustain and replicate community engagement and a mission statement of goodwill that happened when building the new Village.

“The efforts to actually make that happen are not happening so that it erases all the good work, all the good vibes, all the celebration that USC village generated in the first place,” said Oyie.

These efforts were simply not enough to remedy the impact of gentrification on surrounding communities. To come up with a community benefits agreement, the university needs to take various voices into careful consideration, including those of local residents, small businesses, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders. USC needs to make a long-term commitment to the development of equitable solutions through thoughtful planning and effectual execution.

“We shouldn’t be fighting against each other. We should be uniting and collaborating with each other.”

— Jaime Carias

“We have to build better public-private partnerships. It’s not the university against the community or the community against the university,” Carias emphasized. “Rather, it should be the community with the university. And I think that’s really where the magic will happen.”