USC Village Has a Trader Joe's, Target and Restaurants. Are They Open to Everyone?
EXPAND The new USC Village is dominated by dorms and apartments that will house 2,500 students — but it also has a Trader Joe's. Hillel Aron The University of Southern California has long been criticized for being an inward-looking institution, one that insulates itself from the surrounding neighborhoods of South Los Angeles . Its new expansion project, USC Village, is hailed for changing that. The 15-acre, $ 700 million housing and retail development brings a Trader Joe's to South L.A. for the first time, as well as a Target, with many other businesses (15 restaurants and nearly as many shops) to come — and with them, jobs. A recent New York Times piece lavished praise upon the development, which has its official groundbreaking on Saturday, saying the project "brings together one of California’s poorest areas and one of its wealthiest universities." Indeed, as part of the project, the university contributed $20 million to the city's affordable housing trust fu...