I *knew* this eminent domain crap sucked balls...

[trinityvixen]

Seems some folk aren't happy about the plans to rebuild N'Awlins

This cannot end well. They're going to pay people for the property they assimilate into government land, I presume, but how will that property be fairly valued? How will ownership be proven in some cases? Why is it safe to assume that less than half of the city's residents at the time of Katrina will come back? People always come back. Look at all the stupid Floridians who go back every year after shuttering up homes and sleeping in school gymnasiums for a season.

I can't comment on the hints that this plan is racist or at least racially biased by accident against African Americans, not knowing the situation, but I can tell you that the idea the city refuses to allow homes to be built or rebuilt in areas is not kosher with me. If the person owns the property, and the moving in of materials to build/re-build isn't endangering lives or compromising cleanup, isn't it that person's choice whether or not to procede?

I really, really get weirded out by eminent domain issues. The idea that if your house impedes a town making more money or building a transit system they want, the government can force you to give it up gives me the chills. This might be the one thing that having a more conservative supreme court would help with--Republicans and right-wing nuts are the "don't touch my stuff!!!" sort, right? Ooh, except for those big-business Republicans...sheisse...

Comments

[smartylibrarian.livejournal.com]

I really, really get weirded out by eminent domain issues. The idea that if your house impedes a town making more money or building a transit system they want, the government can force you to give it up gives me the chills.

If I remember correctly, there was a case a few months or so ago where a town forced people to sell their land to a private investor so that a Walmart or something could be built. Giving up land for a subway station is one thing. A subway will benefit the ENTIRE community. Giving up land to a private investor only benefits that private investor. This is the kind of thing will be seeing a lot more of if Alito gets confirmed.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

ewww, Alito. He's been geing grilled pretty well during his hearings, though.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

You're thinking of Kelo vs. New London.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

As a general rule, eminent domain is dangerous stuff, skirting the edge of the basic concepts of the modern state. On the other hand, natural disasters flat-out destroying entire cities is not something which is dealt with in most political and social theory. I think the city that will be built will certainly pay off in huge ways in the future but that it will be fantastically unhelpful to the city's current residents and its scattered refugees. The one big, big, big issue, though is the economic divide (and the racial divide which comes with it) which will be created by the new developments. Right now the goal will be to make a sleeker city which will attract new money in the form of rich residents seeking a slice of the re-heated pie, so to speak.

Potential long-term upside, though: if the new NO becomes popular enough with businesses then it could help the economy of the surrounding area and thus give back to those who left but didn't go far. I don't know exactly if this is valid or how much of an effect it could have, though.

Also, I don't think that everyone's going to be coming back to NO. Floridans get hit hard by storms, Californians by quakes, but not on the scale of Katrina. It'd be something important for the government to look into, though... how many people who left have set up permanent residence elsewhere.

As a general rule

[carpdeus.livejournal.com]

With each month that goes by, a percentage of people who are living away from home will not return. Take someone who has been moved across the country, say to Salt Lake City. In the months since they were moved, they have found a job, met new friends, perhaps fallen in love. Kids have been uprooted and are attending new schools with new friends and parents are going to be loathe to uproot their children again.

They may want to go back, but there are lots of folks who will be unable to. If you were renting, you've probably gone on with your life, found new jobs, have a new apartment. Are you really going to try to go back to a city in flux, to a home that may no longer exist, to friends who are scattered to the four winds?

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Ok, in regards to eminent domain I have to admit a very strong bias against (as will be apparent why in a moment). In my opinion, about 80% of the time it's pure crap.

Now eminent domain (though I have a better name for it) has been pulled on native american lands (as defined by federally signed treaties) for years. At the very heart of eminent domain is the concept that the government knows how to "make better use" of the land then you do. At best that can be a very arbitrary determination, and at worse a corrupt one. Plus the government (at least on the federal level) has a piss poor record when trying to determine what is "fair market value". Now when case started coming up about the use of eminent domain being applied to corporate interests in cities, my first (and native) response was "turn about is fair play". When the malicious snicker moment passed, I said something along the lines of "When it happened to the natives, you all didn't care. Now it happens to you and you cry foul. So is the fate of the short-sighted." I think I'll cut things off here before I break into a full rant.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

What makes it even worse in this case is that - at least this is what I've heard about some of it - it seems as though the rules are established so as to dissuade people from moving back, and then make the lack of people who've moved back the nominal reason for taking the land and redeveloping. That is:

They tell people now, "If in 6 months 5,000 people haven't returned to area X, area X will be taken and redeveloped as we see fit," which leaves people with two options:
A) Move back and pour enormous amounts of their own time, effort, and money into getting their own land back in order, with the risk that it might all be for nothing.
B) Stay the hell away, either taking whatever (as you say, probably dismal) sum the government will offer for the land in 6 months, or sell it for peanuts to a speculator now.

Clearly, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many people have already lost nearly everything, and although they probably would be will to put whatever was left into rebuilding under normal personal property protections, this threat from the local government will be too much, and huge numbers will turn to choice B. Then, when the time comes to take the land from those who picked A, what will they say? "Well, the people simply didn't want to move back."

It's practically a Mafia-style strongarm tactic. I knew nothing good could come of that last very spurious eminent domain ruling by the Supreme Court.

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

I don't know the details, but my paternal grandfather was forced to give up (or sell dirt cheap) a huge chunk of property due to the government's desire to build a transit system.

That property became JFK Airport.

If only Grandpa was able to strike a better deal ...

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

This eminent domain issue is poor use by the gov.

That does not damn eminent domain as a concept -- the ability of the government to seize land has been a governmental power for as long as governments have existed, and the new-at-the-time provision in the US Constitution regarding it was the requirement that the owner be compensated.

The answer here ist to vote the fuckers out -- the problem with Iraq is not the government's ability to make war, or even the theoretical ability to conscript, but rather THIS war. Similarly, the problem is not the government's seizure, condemnation, or eminent domain powers (all are being used here), or the rules of escheat (also, I suspect, at issue), but rather HOW they are being used.

And this has little-to-nothing to do with Kelo, the last eminent domain ruling, which was a very run-of-the mill use of eminent domain (as was JFK -- there WAS a governmental need, and it WAS used for a public purpose). The problem here is the poisonous way the fedgov has chosen to go about rebuilding the Crescent City. The solution for New Orleans is to do what was promised: BUILD FUCKING DIKES AND LEVEES. Anything else is just a scam and a shame, and any use of eminent domain is merely one tool being used for evil, itself actually quite inoffensive and useful.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Not just the dikes and levees, but also restoring the wetlands -- a water redirection project that'd been endorsed by engineers in the area on all sides of the political spectrum for years but was never followed. It wouldn't even cost so much (but heaven forfend that anyone following the currently dominant ideology might acknowledge that nature provides benefits in its non-exploited state...)