Living in South Central, LA!!

<p>Hey!</p>

<p>Everything about USC on paper looks amazing. It has probably become my top choice, and I would be thrilled to go there. BUT, I have heard it’s in a BAD BAD neighborhood. South Central, LA is where the Bloods, Crips, and Snoop Dog is from. Is it really as bad as they say? Is it safe, and can I feel comfortable there?</p>

<p>I lived at the Rose Hill Campus at Fordham for a few weeks over the summer for a program. We were smack in the middle of the Bronx, not the best neighborhood… I felt like I was trapped in the campus, with no option to leave. A walk outside the campus entrance, and you were right in the ghetto. High gated fences and security guards lined the boarders, giving me an uneasy feeling. You could hear police sirens at night, and maybe the occasional gunshot (if I wasn’t imagining it). I really don’t want USC to end up like this.</p>

<p>It can be pretty ghetto to the south, west, and east of campus, but North University Park is not bad at all. There are locals interspersed throughout the mostly student-populated area north of campus, but they respect the university. There is a gate around the campus, but it doesn’t suggest a maximum-security prison-like area. On campus is very secure and safe. DPS (Dept. of Public Safety) constantly patrols the campus and the surrounding area.</p>

<p>It may seem a little scary at first, especially to those who have never been in an urban setting before, but most students live off-campus after the first year (whether in USC or private housing) and most become more or less comfortable with the area (as comfortable as you can be in an urban setting). Just keep your city smarts about you and don’t go walking alone at night. Where I live off campus it’s quiet (in other words, no sirens, no gunshots) at night.</p>

<p>And since you mentioned Bloods, Crips, and Snoop Dogg, might I also remind you that South Central (and the rest of LA) is now mostly Hispanic, not black. LA has a very different feeling compared to other major cities in which the dominant minority is black. Gangs, although there are some nearby, do not bother USC students. I know I’m probably not making it seem all picture-perfect, because it isn’t, but too many people make USC out to be in some war zone when it isn’t.</p>

<p>lol @ the Snoop Dogg reference. This board never ceases to make me laugh.</p>

<p>Anyway, no, it’s fine. The surrounding few blocks are definitely not nice by any means, but not very dangerous, just poor. Stray too far in the wrong direction and you end up in some bad areas, but you should be fine. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, not even close.</p>

<p>For the record, hardly any gangs occupy territory near USC…no crips. A few bloods maybe. It doesn’t matter, they don’t use USC students for target practice.</p>

<p>The USC campus also does not resemble the one you described in the least bit. </p>

<p>You’ll be fine. LA’s not a walkable city anyway. Bring a car.</p>

<p>actually this will sound kind of ridiculous to some, but I’m from one of California’s most dangerous areas, so the area around 'SC is comparitively quite safe… but that isn’t the point. the point is that living in a neighborhood where there is extreme poverty and destitution reminds me of where i came from, and where i have to keep myself from ending up after college. living right next to Westwood like those ucla kids gives an artificiality sense of only the commercially booming side of los angeles.</p>

<p>frankly, no matter where you are, you should hold on to your purse tightly and keep a wary eye, especially at night. crime happens everywhere in the world. carry pepperspray if it makes you feel better.</p>

<p>gangs are not an issue. if there are crimes, they are random. DPS protects you very well on-campus 24-7, and lots of the time they catch the offenders for reported off-campus crimes too. most robberies are probably performed by a handful of less law-abiding students themselves, although the grand majority of Trojans are proud and friendly and are kind to their own.</p>

<p>I think people over exaggerate the neighborhood outside USC. But let me ask you, why would you be off campus anyways? You might go off campus, 1-2 a week to go groceries shopping?</p>

<p>Once you are on campus, there’s USC security everywhere. The security presences is so large on campus, they told me not to bother calling 911, but call the Trojan Emergency line. There’s gates that circle the campus.</p>

<p>I live in downtown LA and commute to USC, which takes 10 minutes. I’ve never ran into any problems. Just use common sense. Don’t leave valuables in the car, don’t drive around with your stereo booming, and so forth.</p>

<p>Than again, I’m a California native.</p>

<p>I like the UCLA jaw there. A lot of colleges aren’t in the best of locations, and yeah there are going to be robberies this and that, but that’s because the students weren’t smart about watching out for themselves. You’ve got to use common sense.</p>

<p>BTW, I was watching some TV show on Hispanic gangs…they’re vicious. </p>

<p>Anyways, it’s all about being careful. Don’t walk around by yourself in the middle of the night. You’d probably be safer during the day if you walked with people as well. I think the worst thing you can do is imprison yourself.</p>

<p>MS-13? They’re not in that area.</p>

<p>Anyway, regardless of what it “remind you of,” USC’s location doesn’t come CLOSE to UCLA’s. Westwood is an incredible place to go to college.</p>

<p>The nieghborhood is not nearly as bad as people think it is.</p>

<p>I suppose it’s the public perception of the area. The area around my school is supposed to be bad, and we joke about the dangers of it. However, It’s definitely not as bad as I anticipated. I would guess South Central is the same way.</p>

<p>I know that LA is not a walkable city… so if I bring my car, would there be problems with robbery or damage to property??? Especially if it is a new mustang?</p>

<p>i’d say you’re pretty safe if you park it in the USC parking lot. I mean, there are some pretty nice cars here at USC, and most don’t get broken into.
but robberies do happen so it’s your call what you want to risk</p>

<p>Sorry to hijack the thread, but since you’re on the topic of cars:</p>

<p>Can students survive without a car? I’m an OOS-er (transfer) coming from TX. I don’t mind being sheltered in the campus for the whole semester, but I’d very much like not to have to journey too far off campus on foot for the essentials.</p>

<p>I used to live in LA and I just went back to visit this summer.
Like everyone else says, USC is in a relatively safe neighborhood. Not as safe as, costa mesa or newport, but not like…compton(30 mins away) haha. </p>

<p>My family alums (mother,aunt,uncle) all warned me that it was GHETTO (20 years ago). But when I visited, they changed their minds after seeing it saying that it had cleaned up a lot. It’s quite safe and there’s a lot to do so you never get bored :slight_smile: It’s not far from Beverly Hills(30 mins) and Santa Monica(1-2hrs depending on the traffic…).</p>

<p>@above post, I live in TX now (haha). You def. don’t need a car. There are a lot of CVS/Walgreens/insert other food places around. The traffic is HORRIBLE in LA. It took me two hours to drive to Malibu from USC.</p>

<p>Twenty8,
I don’t have a car and I do just fine. Just make sure you have a couple friends that do ;-).</p>

<p>santa monica is not 2 hours from usc!</p>

<p>Snoop Dog is from Long Beach…</p>

<p>

fo’rizzle…</p>

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</p>

<p>Sorry to say, but robbers have a plethora of 2008 bmws, mercedes, range rovers, and porsches to choose from.</p>

<p>Hi- I have lived here for 2 years, right outside the campus, 5 min away by foot. Yes, it is indeed a ghetto compared to the rest of Los Angeles, make no mistake of it. Those who say otherwise are just dellusioning themselves. Raciallyand economically polarized- check, Infrastructure and services lacking-check, lack of safety or feeling of lack of personal safety walking around at any time of the day especially at night-check, high factual and actual occurences of crime - check (this is a fact and is well documented and made known to students via email), cleanliness of streets and public places-low or lacking-check. Thsi neighborhood is overall seedy, unsafe, dirty, unpleasant hands down. In addition, the apartments are just overrated ie. rents are not low to make up for it. The only one perk - convenience to rush to class and get all your school business done in a jiffy. Not the fault of the university necessarily. Root causes are more complex and no one organization is able to solve it single handedly. The university does a good job policing and making their rounds, it just happens to be in a real crappy part of Los Angeles. However, no it is by no means as bad as the gang ridden parts of LA, where you are targets of drive by shootings for no reason. The crime that goes on here are economic driven mostly- robbery, theft, aggravated assault etcetc , not murder. Good luck!</p>

<p>How many drive-by shootings have you heard about in the past two years? I’ve heard of none.</p>