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June 25, 2005
Kelo in the context of Poletown's reversal
I'm not going to get into any outraged or even measured analysis of the Kelo decision because it's been done everywhere else much better than I could do it. I think Publius's analysis is pretty spot on, though, including his praise of Thomas's writing.
I was a little surprised by the decision since one of the landmark eminent domain cases in which private land was taken for private use, Poletown v. City of Detroit, 410 Mich. 616 (Mich. 1981), was overruled last summer in County of Wayne v. Hathcock, 471 Mich. 445 (Mich. 2004). The Hathcock ruling explicitly stated that the county's taking of private land in order to create a private technology park was unconstitutional because it didn't satisfy the public use requirement.
Did anyone else watch the Poletown documentary in Property class?
The Detroit Free-Press has a good article on the ruling from last summer.
Decisions like this make me glad I live in a city that is somewhat afraid of expansion and growth. There is occasionally some talk of condemning land in order to allow private development but it rarely happens. What's funny is that the Chamber of Commerce and real estate developers constantly criticize the city for not being growth-oriented and not interested enough in attracting new business. Those same people would be the first to criticize the city if it did what New London did. The CoC here is more interested in creating urban sprawl on the scale of Oklahoma City without concern for having the proper infrastructure in place.
Posted by Half-Cocked at June 25, 2005 01:49 AM