Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>This is yet another example of how reactionary the Left has become -
>defending private property against public use.
-Uh, no. The controversy is about taking people's houses and -neighborhoods and handing them over to private developers. That's not -public use. It's using public power for private gain.
So there are no such things as externalities where the public gains from private development? And you really believe that the rightwing folks behind this fight are interested in protecting people against corporate interests?
Remember, the Supreme Court long ago established the right of local governments to take poor peoples property and hand it to private developers. All Kelo did was confirm that the property of non-poor people were subject to the same rules.
And renters are routinely kicked out of their homes for private gain, so there is little principle in most states to protect people from being evicted from their homes because of private development. Orders of magnitude more renters get evicted than private homeowners are bought out unwillingly by eminent domain, yet some on the left have been suckered into making fighting eminent domain a high principle.
It's ridiculous-- the Kelo decision actually was pretty clear that proof of corrupt private dealings without a public-interested justification could make a deal suspect, and there are plenty of ways to write legislation to require clear measurements of public gain. But flat prohibitions on use of eminent domain is being used by mostly conservative state legislatures to restrict the urban planning powers of cities.
Nathan Newman