« Baruch-lyn | Main | Eminent-Domain Ruling Knits Rivals »
July 8, 2005
City Journal (Manhattan Institute) Eminent Domain Articles
Imminent domain?
by Nicole Gelinas
The [Supreme] court’s ruling is a blank check to big-spending Gotham, the land of the perennial multi-billion-dollar budget deficit. It will fuse three potent political and fiscal forces that already drive Gotham’s pols and create a municipal raze-and-tax-and-spend monster.
Public Benefit?
by Steve Malanga
Kelo’s distortion of the meaning of the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause is troubling enough. What makes the decision even more infuriating is that the public benefit promised by urban economic development programs rarely materializes—in fact, such initiatives often become tax eaters—a public burden rather than a public benefit. Throughout the country, cities have liberally used eminent domain to take land in order to build publicly subsidized mega-projects that have wasted tax dollars and distorted the private marketplace. Regrettably, the Supreme Court’s decision is already encouraging local governments to advance yet more such plans.
Posted by lumi at July 8, 2005 6:51 PM