American Dream

These days, people come up and rant about the topic - and not just policy wonks, but ordinary folks of various political perspectives. Friends from all over the country send newspaper clips of eminent-domain abuses in their community, with yellow sticky notes bearing their outraged comments. The sea change occurred June 23, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that cities should be granted the utmost latitude when they decide to condemn homes, businesses and whole neighborhoods and turn the properties over to big-box retailers, auto malls, condo developers or whatnot. Most of the public understood what Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explained in her dissent: "Today nearly all real property is susceptible to condemnation on the Court's theory. In the prescient words of a dissenter from the infamous decision in Poletown, '[n]ow that we have authorized local legislative bodies to decide that a different commercial or industrial use of property will produce greater public benefits than its present use, no homeowner's, merchant's or manufacturer's property, however productive or valuable to its owner, is immune from condemnation for the benefit of other private interests that will put it to a "higher" use.'"