property rights, part 2
Jun. 24th, 2005 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonA followup to my note yesterday, about the Supreme Court decision regarding personal property rights (or lack thereof), is this CNN-Money article today.
I am reminded of the old Zen Buddhist saying that the best protection against theft is not an iron rod, but poverty. The best protection against eminent domain issues is to be off the radar (not be in a high-growth area), and, if at all possible (and sometimes it is not), to have a local government which is made up of actual citizens, not politicians. Otherwise, you're simply at the mercy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having something a developer wants, and is willing to pay the city to get. So much for personal property rights.
Full article: Eminent domain: A big-box bonanza? (subhed: Court's ruling OKed land grab for business like Target, Home Depot, CostCo, Bed Bath & Beyond)
Excerpt:
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Supreme Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take private land for business development.
Retailers such as Target, Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond have thus far managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas where prime retail space isn't always easily found.
Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows the government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation.
Local governments have increasingly expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue generation and job creation.
The Supreme Court's decision Thursday clarified that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private and public economic development.
I am reminded of the old Zen Buddhist saying that the best protection against theft is not an iron rod, but poverty. The best protection against eminent domain issues is to be off the radar (not be in a high-growth area), and, if at all possible (and sometimes it is not), to have a local government which is made up of actual citizens, not politicians. Otherwise, you're simply at the mercy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having something a developer wants, and is willing to pay the city to get. So much for personal property rights.
Full article: Eminent domain: A big-box bonanza? (subhed: Court's ruling OKed land grab for business like Target, Home Depot, CostCo, Bed Bath & Beyond)
Excerpt:
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Supreme Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take private land for business development.
Retailers such as Target, Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond have thus far managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas where prime retail space isn't always easily found.
Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows the government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation.
Local governments have increasingly expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue generation and job creation.
The Supreme Court's decision Thursday clarified that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private and public economic development.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 07:37 pm (UTC)I found your journal through
Your local government's ability to use this power will be limited by your state constitution as well. In Michigan, local governments no longer have this power (http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/epoletown24e_20050624.htm). Personally, I'm mixed about this. I think that Poletown (in the article) was a misuse of this type of power.
But, several smaller projects where done in Detroit while local governments still had this power. It was used often to take over abandoned property (30% of Detroit is vacant or abandoned) were the legal owner couldn't be found. The money is held in escrow until the owner decided to come forward and claim the land. It is going to be a lot harder to put in new developments in Detroit. And that city needs jobs, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
Personally, I don't think this policy "tool" is inherently bad. Easy to misuse perhaps, but it can be used to make life better (more jobs, taxes mean better city services) for a community. Like a lot of government power, whether this is overall a good thing or not has to do with the traditional weakness of democracy – corruption and apathy.
Just some random thoughts on this.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 09:56 pm (UTC)It's always a balance, for sure -- there are times when the "greater good" favors government taking, but I'd tend in general to err on the side of the individual, especially if the property involved is, as it was in this case, long-time family homes and the proposed reason for taking it purely commercial. Abandoned, unsafe, etc (or the legal term, "distressed") property is another kind of issue, I'd feel, and, I believe, so did the Supremes -- in this case they specifically found that the property was not in any way "distressed," which would have made the case more clear-cut.
The decision gave a significantly greater amount of latitude and power to local government to take away individual property, including (as in this case)personal homes and businesses. Once local government has that power, the question is, how far do you trust them to use it wisely? As you point out, one option is for residents of a particular state to attempt to elect representatives who will restrict that right on a state by state level, but I'd personally have preferred that the decision only allowed taking in the case of distressed propery (abandoned, etc), or, in some cases, genuine public use of the property (park, etc). So it goes...