> I am not denying that there might be abuses of the process - like very other
> process, but such abuses can be effectively addressed in courts. They do
> not need a policy change. If anything, we need more use of eminent domain
> to shut down slumlords, crackhouses, dives and blight that make the US
> cities so fucking unlivable comparing to the European cities.
Amazing! Wojtek has a point about problems with slumlords and crackhouses. There need to be ways to deal with these problems, but I don't think that defending the state's authority should be among those options. Eminent domain should offend everybody, regardless of the exceptions.
I'm willing to bet that over the years, eminent domain has been used to create more slums and crackhouses than it has fixed neighborhoods.
One obvious example is the construction of the interstate highway system. Many urban neighborhoods were destroyed and disrupted *deliberately* by urban planners. The highway that goes directly south out of downtown Chicago is one example. They planned that highway to destroy neighborhood grassroots power in those predominatly black neighborhoods.
My father was an urban planner for Kansas City in the 1970s, so I've followed these issues closely for most of my life. When my father worked for KCMO, the planned a highway project (now known as US 71) that would put a highway through the ghettos on KC's east side. I'm sure that they used eminent domain to seize most of the houses in the path of that highway. But guess what? The highway wasn't built. It was built eventually and completed 3-4 years ago. I take that highway often. But for years there was a swath of vacant land for miles through that community. That part of town is still the most segregated, violent, and economically depressed part of Kansas City.
Based on what I've seen in Kansas City and elsewhere, I just can't see how eminent domain is something that benefits working people.
Chuck