A Hopeful Benefit to All: Riesman's Veto Groups Theory and the USC Village

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On the north border of the University of Southern California's campus sits the University Village shopping center, which is home to various stores and restaurants, some of them owned by members of the local community. The shopping center is home to Superior Grocers, a food court, Denny's, Starbucks, and many other retail stores. There are also a considerable amount of vacant shops (Gordon 2010). The nearly 30 year old University Village as well as the current USC student housing structures, Cardinal Gardens and Century Apartments, will be demolished and rebuilt as 'USC Village' as a part of USC's new $900 million retail and student housing project. The new USC Village "will include up to 350,000 square feet of community-serving retail, new student housing and academic space, and will increase the quality of life for students and the community" (USC Village 2014). The University boasts the creation of 12,000 new jobs and an increased amount of academic space as part of the project. As of April 2014, USC is in the demolition stage of the plan; the entire project is not expected to be completed until roughly 2030.
This gigantic project is important because there are concerns that the new USC Village will displace local community members, many of which are Hispanic, low-income families, and raise the price of housing in the area, making it unaffordable for local residents (Saillant 2012). This would contribute to the idea that USC is slowly gentrifying the surrounding neighborhood, which would force less wealthy local residents out of their homes into less desirable neighborhoods, while bringing in relatively wealthy college students.
Two competing theories describing structure of power - power elite and veto groups - can be used t...

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...e. 2012. "L.A. Panel Puts Hold on $1.1-Billion Makeover of Land Near USC." Los Angeles Times, Aug 22, (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/22/local/la-me- usc-development-20120822).
"United States : Village at USC Project all Set to START."2013. MENA Report (http://search.proquest.com/docview/1322103065?accountid=14749).
USC Village. 2014. "Overview: Creating a New Vibrant Center for our Community." Website. (https://village.usc.edu/information/overview/)
Wigintton, Jeffrey S. 2013. "Urban Universities' Campus Expansion Projects in the 21st Century: A Case Study of the University of Southern California's "Village at USC" Project and its Potential Economic and Social Impacts on its Local Community to Provide a Template for Future Expansion Projects." University of Southern California, Ann Arbor (http://search.proquest.com/docview/1459423627?accountid=14749).

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