Kelo et. al. Mugabe Style
Using eminent domain to build a much needed flood control system or highway despite a property owner who is holding out is one thing. But today's Kelo decision allows private homes and businesses be taken so cities can let other private property owners build businesses that benefit city finances.
This disincentivizes cities from being more fiscally responsible. It's spend some, condemn some, raze some, raise some, tax some, spend some. It's a terrible thing to allow city councils this power. The better solution is to restructure taxes so big retailers don't have such a fiscal advantage over homeowners, or, possibly, to require that evicted homeowners in such situations get partnership profits over the long haul instead of one-time "fair-market" buyouts.
Kelo is especially troubling in the context of what can happen when government takes this too far. I'm thinking, of course, of Zimbabwe, where the heinous dictator Robert Mugabe is razing settlements of poor people -- his political opponents -- in the name of redevelopment. Look at this:
Kelo gone wild. (BBC photo)
There's nothing at all funny about Mugabe's reign, or his recent uprooting of one million of his countrymen. Charles Bird at Redstate.Org has an excellent analysis of China's complicity in Zimbabwe's sinking disaster (h/t Betsy). The country's population has dropped from 13 million to 10 million as its brain and financial power flees, those remaining are dying and if they live, live in fear, and the Communist Chinese are using this pain to gain a foothold in Africa.
I know this is a disjointed post; file it under "two things that really upset me."
Update: Anti-eminent domain crusader Stephen Greenhut writing on the OC Register's blog:
This disincentivizes cities from being more fiscally responsible. It's spend some, condemn some, raze some, raise some, tax some, spend some. It's a terrible thing to allow city councils this power. The better solution is to restructure taxes so big retailers don't have such a fiscal advantage over homeowners, or, possibly, to require that evicted homeowners in such situations get partnership profits over the long haul instead of one-time "fair-market" buyouts.
Kelo is especially troubling in the context of what can happen when government takes this too far. I'm thinking, of course, of Zimbabwe, where the heinous dictator Robert Mugabe is razing settlements of poor people -- his political opponents -- in the name of redevelopment. Look at this:
Kelo gone wild. (BBC photo)
There's nothing at all funny about Mugabe's reign, or his recent uprooting of one million of his countrymen. Charles Bird at Redstate.Org has an excellent analysis of China's complicity in Zimbabwe's sinking disaster (h/t Betsy). The country's population has dropped from 13 million to 10 million as its brain and financial power flees, those remaining are dying and if they live, live in fear, and the Communist Chinese are using this pain to gain a foothold in Africa.
I know this is a disjointed post; file it under "two things that really upset me."
Update: Anti-eminent domain crusader Stephen Greenhut writing on the OC Register's blog:
The result of this decision will be disastrous: It will mean the Garden Grove-ization of America, as every two-bit planner will begin looking for neighborhoods and small businesses to bulldoze to make way for tax-generating new big-box stores, Indian casinos, auto malls or theme parks.
The majority said that it wasn't its business to second guess the constitutionality of local cities, but this court has never shied away from second guessing other local decisions on other matters.
posted by Laer at 7:16 PM
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