more on Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Patrick Thibodeau <smoke_dc () yahoo com>
Date: June 24, 2005 8:45:11 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes
Reply-To: smoke_dc () yahoo com



Hi Dave,
If you're not tired of this thread yet, this is something I wrote for
blog critics last night. It's based on my long experience as a newspaper
reporter in Connecticut.
Regards,
Patrick Thibodeau
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/23/192656.php

The ownership society is working out just nicely. You can own your home
as long as the government doesn't want it for a shopping mall. Thank you
very much.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision today backing New London, Conn.'s
economic development land grab may set the stage for another disastrous
redevelopment era.

I'm a Connecticut native and worked as a newspaper reporter in that
state for nearly 20 years, and I've seen little good come from the
state's urban economic developments efforts.

In the 1960s, New Britain, Connecticut, bought into the dream that every
urban problem can be solved with a bulldozer.

It built a Y-shaped highway system through its downtown that destroyed
neighborhoods and historic buildings. It relocated companies to
industrial parks and built sterile, monumentally ugly brick apartment
complexes for displaced residents.

New Britain lost most of its architectural heritage and soon most of its
retail businesses. The highways made it easy for residents to travel to
malls and shopping centers in the leafy suburbs.

Hartford, Conn., took a similar path. It obliterated historic areas and
established neighborhoods along the Connecticut River to build
"Constitution Plaza" - a concrete, soulless, lifeless wasteland of glass
office buildings.

But Hartford didn't learn. It's now finishing a $1 billion project
called Adrian's Landing, which, I'll boldly predict, is similarly
doomed.

Not surprising New London is trying this bulldozing approach.

Connecticut's wealth, its office parks and malls, are in the suburbs,
not its cities. The cities are dealing with heavy property tax loads,
populations that are skewed toward young, poor, aging, and fixed income.
The schools are struggling and there's crime galore.

These developments fix nothing. The architectural renderings are eye
candy for desperate mayors who are out of money and ideas. Now, with
this court ruling they can more easily buy into these development
fictions.

This happens everywhere. Where I live today, in Washington DC., the
government approved a baseball stadium in the hope it would spur
economic development. Right.

Cleveland built a downtown stadium in 1992, and was ranked in 2004 by
the Census Bureau as the poorest in the nation, with 31.3% of its
population below the poverty level.

Ownership society? Someone has to pay. Thank You Supreme Court

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On Behalf
Of David Farber
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 4:09 AM
To: Ip ip
Subject: [IP] more on Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes




Begin forwarded message:

From: Jon Urdan <jonu () preventsys com>
Date: June 24, 2005 12:18:55 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes


No one has commented on the odd alignment of judges in this case.
Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas, generally friends of business and states'
rights, voted against this opinion.  In other words, they wanted the
Federal
Judiciary to rule against the developers and overrule the state of
Connecticut and local New London government.  Meanwhile a coalition
including all the liberal judges chose to not to protect the rights
of the
relatively powerless homeowners.

Does this seem odd to anyone else?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On
Behalf Of
David Farber
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:56 PM
To: Ip ip
Subject: [IP] more on Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes




Begin forwarded message:

From: Nathan COCHRANE <NCOCHRANE () theage com au>
Date: June 23, 2005 8:02:25 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes


Hi Dave

The news out of the US gets weirder and weirder all the time. So much
for the US Constitution when might makes right.

What profit fighting for democracy in Iraq when you lose it at home?

But it could be an interesting angle on the copyright debate. If the
public benefit of piracy outweighed the private rights of intellectual
property ownership then, according to this judgement, states should
legalise open slather IP infringement.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com]On
Behalf Of
David Farber
Sent: Friday, 24 June 2005 6:41 AM
To: Ip ip
Subject: [IP] Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes




Begin forwarded message:

From: eekid () aol com
Date: June 23, 2005 10:55:46 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes


Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local
governments may
seize people's homes and businesses ? even against their will ? for
private
economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many
areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing
countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose
homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex.
They
argued that cities have no right to take their land except for
projects with
a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted
areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for
projects
such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax
revenue.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a
development project will benefit the community, justices said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it
believes
will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including ? but
by no
means limited to ? new jobs and increased tax
revenue," Justice     John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

He was joined by Justice     Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows
governments to
take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public
use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class
neighborhood in
New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to
raze
their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans
served a
public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the
homeowners'
property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_su_co/
scotus_seizing_property_2



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