http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/opini ... erney.html?

Your Land Is My Land

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: July 5, 2005

PITTSBURGH — Two questions I'd like to ask candidates for Sandra Day O'Connor's job:

1. Does the Constitution forbid the government from seizing your home and giving it to someone else?

2. If you're not sure, would you be willing to tour Pittsburgh before taking this job?

Justice O'Connor had no problem with the first question. Noting that the Fifth Amendment allows property to be taken only for a "public use" like a road, she rejected arguments that it could be given to a developer just because the public could benefit from new jobs and tax revenues. By that logic, she argued in one of her last opinions, no one's home or business would be safe from anyone with a better use in mind for it.

But her side was outvoted, 5 to 4, by justices not inclined to be too literal about the Bill of Rights. They were pragmatists, arguing that land grabs like this had previously been allowed, which is quite right. And that's why I recommend a trip to my hometown to see the long-term effects.

Pittsburgh has been the great pioneer in eminent domain ever since its leaders razed 80 buildings in the 1950's near the riverfront park downtown. They replaced a bustling business district with Gateway Center, an array of bland corporate towers surrounded by the sort of empty plazas that are now considered hopelessly retrograde by urban planners trying to create street life.

At the time, though, the towers and plazas seemed wonderfully modern. Viewed from across the river, the new skyline was a panoramic advertisement for the Pittsburgh Renaissance, which became a national model and inspired Pittsburgh's leaders to go on finding better uses for private land, especially land occupied by blacks.

Bulldozers razed the Lower Hill District, the black neighborhood next to downtown that was famous for its jazz scene (and now famous mostly as a memory in August Wilson's plays). The city built a domed arena that was supposed to be part of a cultural "acropolis," but the rest of the project died. Today, having belatedly realized that downtown would benefit from people living nearby, the city is trying to entice them back to the Hill by building homes there.

In the 1960's, the bulldozers moved into East Liberty, until then the busiest shopping district outside downtown. Some of the leading businessmen there wanted to upgrade the neighborhood, so hundreds of small businesses and thousands of people were moved to make room for upscale apartment buildings, parking lots, housing projects, roads and a pedestrian mall.

I was working there in a drugstore whose owners cursed the project, and at first I thought they were just behind the times. But their worst fears were confirmed. The shopping district was destroyed. The drugstore closed, along with the department stores, movie theaters, office buildings and most other businesses.

You'd think a fiasco like that would have humbled Pittsburgh's planners, but they just went on. They kicked out a small company to give H. J. Heinz more room. Mayor Tom Murphy has attracted national attention for his grand designs - and fights - to replace thriving small businesses downtown and on the North Side with more upscale tenants.

The city managed to clear out shops and an office building to make room for a new Lazarus department store, built with $50 million in public funds, but Lazarus did not live up to its name. It has shut down and left a vacant building. Meanwhile, the city's finances are in ruins, and businesses and residents have been fleeing the high taxes required to pay off decades of urban renewal projects and corporate subsidies.

Yet the mayor still yearns for more acquisitions. He welcomed the Supreme Court decision, telling The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that eminent domain "is a great equalizer when you're having a conversation with people." Well, that's one way to describe the power to take people's property.

But I think a future Supreme Court justice would have a different view of eminent domain after touring Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, especially those that escaped urban renewal: the old-fashioned business districts with crowded sidewalks and the newly gentrified neighborhoods with renovated homes and converted warehouses. The future justice would quickly see what sets the success stories apart from Gateway Center and East Liberty. No politicians ever seized those homes and businesses for a "better use."

Ahhhhhh!!!! GH!!! It was on the second page!!! It was gone!!!

I'm looking into buying a piece of property....maybe I should convince the town to make them give it to me!

Justice Souter's house is up for grabs.

Now they're going after Justice Breyer's house.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050729/ap_ ... MlJVRPUCUl

This post cracks me up now that I see who is bumping it.

I couldn't resist. At least the attack of the 5 page rebuttals has subsided:

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/domination.html

http://washingtontimes.com/national/200 ... -5764r.htm


Eminent domain surges after ruling
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 21, 2006


The Supreme Court's decision last year to allow cities and states to seize property for private development "opened the floodgates" to eminent domain actions nationwide, a report says.
In the year since the Kelo decision, nearly 6,000 properties nationwide have been threatened or taken under that precedent, more than half the number that had been seized over a previous five-year period, said a report released yesterday by the Institute for Justice.
"There has been a huge rise in the number of threats to use eminent domain since Kelo. Cities are wielding eminent domain as a club," said Dana Berliner, a senior counsel with the Institute for Justice and the author of the 100-page report.
People threatened with eminent domain are vulnerable, she said, because they feel compelled to sell or have their home or business seized for a fire-sale price. At the same time, Ms. Berliner said, residents have become more active in trying to thwart land grabs and promoting changes to state law to bar the use of eminent domain.
Since the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., a year ago Friday, 5,783 properties nationwide have been either seized or threatened with seizure under eminent domain.
That number compares with 10,281 examples over the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, said the institute, a public-interest law firm that argued the Kelo case before the Supreme Court. During that period, threats were made to seize 6,560 properties, and 3,721 condemnation filings or authorizations were recorded.
In the past year, 5,429 property seizures have been threatened for economic redevelopment projects, plus 354 condemnation filings or authorizations, the institute said.
In the Kelo case, the institute represented nine Connecticut homeowners who tried unsuccessfully to halt New London's takeover of their properties for economic redevelopment. The court held that private development has a public purpose if it will increase jobs and tax receipts.
Ms. Berliner's report, "Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Post-Kelo World," was one of five released yesterday by the Institute for Justice and its grass-roots activism project, the Castle Coalition.
"The court ruled that the U.S. Constitution allows government to use eminent domain to take and bulldoze existing homes and businesses for new private commercial development, holding that the mere possibility that a different private use could produce more taxes or jobs is enough reason for condemnation," the report said.
"Opening the Floodgates" documents 117 projects in the District and 27 states, including Maryland, that have involved the use or threatened use of eminent domain for private development in the past year.
"The vast majority ... involved the removal of lower-income residents and smaller businesses to attract wealthier people or more prominent businesses," Ms. Berliner wrote.
"Of the 117 projects, nearly half involved taking low-income houses, apartments and mobile home parks to construct upscale condominiums or other upscale residences and new retail development. Cities across America are working hard to drive out the working poor," she said.
She said the city of Baltimore is "on an eminent domain spree" because it intends to seize 75 properties for private development in this year alone.

That's very depressing news.

Let me guess... this isn't one of the cases thats going to be re-examined by the court, is it?

Well, the state legislatures can all do something about it, but inexplicably won't. Remember the uproar last year when this opinion came down? Well, the states all had the chance (with public opinion on their sides) to limit the reach of this opinion. What has been done since that time besides the razing of small businesses and low income homes?

Only if the land is taken in order to build a women's clinic.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/natres/EMINDOMAIN.htm

Well, 5 out of 50 ain't bad

"Virtually every state is considering legislation this year."

Um, from your same website:

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/natres/emindomainleg06.htm

Legislatures have passed bills in 27 states to date, as follows:

* Enacted in 18 states—Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
* Passed the legislature and awaiting action by the governor in three states—Alaska, Illinois and Missouri.
* Passed a constitutional amendment that will go on the ballot for voter approval in three states—Louisiana, New Hampshire and South Carolina (as has Florida and Georgia, in addition to their statutes).
* Vetoed by the governor in three states—Arizona, Iowa and New Mexico.

I don't see California, New York, or Texas on any of those lists. Why is it that the most populous states, the ones most affected by this are doing the least? Fuckers want to take my parents property *mumble mumble*.

It's all about money. I bet the new homes won't be cheap either. Cunts.

Didn't the government try to seize the Zapruder film under eminent domain, and then the family demanded like $15,000,000 for it?

This is one of those issues I never figured would become a problem under a Republican government.

There seems to be a lot of issues like that coming up of late. The wierdness of it all is that, really, neither traditional conservative beliefs nor liberal beliefs are being represented in our government.