For years, USC has struggled with its image as a campus in the heart of the inner city and tried to link its fortunes to downtown Los Angeles, a few miles north.

Now, a newly gentrified and hip downtown is marching south, while the university is creeping north. They haven't quite met, but both USC and downtown officials envision a day when the red-brick campus marks the southern edge of the city center...

"Many universities battle this," said Joel Kotkin, the author of several books about L.A. urban life. "I don't know a lot of people who would consider the neighborhood around USC a particularly prime place to live yet. It's a problematic location. It is still adjacent to some of the poorest parts of L.A..."

Kotkin, however, is more cautious, saying the roughly two-mile gap between the skyscrapers of downtown and the USC campus remains a wide one.

"My sense is that it still has a really long way to go," he said...

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