Opinion: Love LA? Don’t Live in the Lorenzo.
by Sophia Pei ‘22
With their Bellagio-esque dancing fountain, four pools, gaming room, free shuttle, and other amenities, the Lorenzo is a popular choice for students at USC. Part of the Renaissance collection, the Lorenzo is privately owned by GH Palmer Associates and marketed as luxury student housing. While GH Palmer Associates is creating much needed housing in downtown LA, the Italian façade luxury apartments don’t serve the greater community. The increasing demand for exclusive student housing has decreased the economic incentive for developers to create additional much needed affordable housing units in South LA.
Unsustainable for the South LA Community
The average household income for families living in South LA neighborhoods surrounding USC is about half the undergraduate tuition. Despite being in lower-income neighborhoods, the Lorenzo not only has no amenities available for the public but lower-income residents are deliberately excluded. With the exception of the Orsini which has a tiny outdoor fountain that non-tenants can enjoy (but only because it was reparation since GH Palmer Associates “accidentally” bulldozed the Giese House), the Renaissance Collection apartments are completely walled off with no public access and include features like sky bridges so tenants can avoid dirtying their shoes on the unclean sidewalk and minimize contact with dreaded lower-income residents. The company is headed by Geoffrey Palmer, a notorious LA developer infamous for his anti-affordable housing views. In 2009 Palmer sued LA County for requiring developers to reserve 15% of units in new apartments for affordable housing. These lawsuits made it impossible for LA to enforce inclusionary zoning and fulfill the great demand for more affordable housing.
Palmer is a Jerk
Geoffrey H. Palmer claims affordable housing is “unAmerican” and “immoral”. His unabashed disregard for the residents he displaces and excludes only reflect the worst aspects of American history. If anything is immoral, it’s Palmer’s own elitist views. As Ron Miller, LA Counties Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Secretary simply states: Palmer is “not a good guy.” Many suspect his immoral practices extend beyond these views, suspecting that the bulldozing of the last old house in Bunter Hill wasn’t an accident. The billionaire developer is often compared to Donald Trump. Palmer was Trump’s biggest private donor, showing his support for the current President by donating $2 million to the Super PAC Rebuilding America Now. Ironically, in his own mind, Palmer is playing the hero, bringing “timeless beauty” out of “urban decay and blight”.
His Faux-Italian Fortresses Disrupt the LA Cityscape and Reinforce White Supremacy
Rather than embracing LA’s unique melding pot of peoples and cultures, Palmer reinforces Western dominance. As Adrian Glick Kudler, writer of LA Curbed states, “They’re all fucking terrible […] His squat, nearly-identical fortresses, with embarrassing names like the Visconti and the Medici, aren’t just ugly (although they are very ugly), they’re vacuums designed to suck the life out of a neighborhood that has worked so hard to become lively in the past decade.” Palmer himself is quoted to have stated “The Italians actually settled L.A. before the Spanish and Chinese.“ Anyone with the most rudimentary US history know that of the Europeans, the Spanish settled Los Angeles (or “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula”) in 1761, way before the Italians… and definitely before the Chinese. This is of course ignoring the fact that the indigenous peoples of Tungva have inhabited the LA area for hundreds of year before.
Leads to Loss of Cultural Diversity
Adjectives like “poor,” “dangerous,” and “sketchy” are often used in describing the neighborhood immediately surrounding USC. However this grittiness is what makes LA unique and enthralling. LA only recently started openly endorsing street life for its cultural and creative values. Unfortunately, due to rapid gentrification caused by developers like Palmer, the diversity in DTLA is on a decline. The Human Impact Partners and Esperanza Community Housing Corporation cites that the population of black and Latina/o residents around USC decreased by 20.3 percent and 15 percent, respectively, between 2000 and 2010, despite increasing in other areas of Los Angeles. Palmer’s Renaissance collection not only walls off street-life but also displaces hundreds of lower-income families. Unlike the transient student tenants, Palmer’s opposition to providing affordable housing units makes it challenging for South LA natives to remain in their neighborhoods. As former USC alum and The Tab writer, Jefferey Stratford, best puts it, “I cannot say I know what our school will look like in the years to come, but I know that today we are blessed to be in so diverse a community. I encourage you to learn how to embrace it. I implore you to learn from it because it may not exist for much longer.”
Be a Smart Consumer
Until this year, LA was unable to enforce inclusionary zoning laws in newly constructed buildings. While the expansion of affordable housing laws to newer buildings is a great step forward, economic forces still favor developers and their wealthy clientele. The primary goal of any business is to maximize profit, not look out for the community. However, a shift in the mindset of the consumer base can greatly affect the producer. Consumerism is a two-way street and potential tenants can support housing by purchasing or renting units that are in buildings that have community-oriented vision. Smart consumerism can promote more sustainable housing system. Do research before applying for non-University sponsored housing. Let’s prove that USC doesn’t stand for “University of Spoiled Children” and boycott unsustainable housing practices with developers who clearly don’t have the best interest of the community in mind.
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