---

A Turning Point for Eminent Domain?
...That land just west of downtown New Haven used to be the site of a vibrant, multiethnic working-class neighborhood along Legion Avenue and Oak Street. Liberal Democrats seized it all — and much more in New Haven — through eminent domain, with the idea of bringing in investors to build a better neighborhood. The neighborhood never got built. Four decades later, the 26-acre stretch of land remains largely abandoned or used for surface parking, a testament to the failure of economic development-driven eminent domain.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was living in New Haven when that lesson became apparent. He wrote the most insightful opinion, a dissenting opinion, in the case of Kelo v. New London. He noted that eminent domain-fueled urban renewal became a synonym for “negro removal.” He saw that in New Haven. In New London, that observation could be broadened to include the removal of working-class families of different backgrounds, the kind of urban liberal constituency critical to the New Deal coalition that enabled Democrats convincingly to claim the populist mantle in this country’s political debate for four decades.

Yet, in Kelo, it was the conservative justices who sided with Justice Thomas and with families whose neighborhood was destroyed by government-aided powerful private interests. The liberal wing unanimously sided with those interests and with the abusers of eminent domain.

And Democrats wonder why this former constituency now watches Fox News....

...Far from producing the promised “development,” the condemnation of private property in New London under Kelo damaged the local economy by destroying homes and businesses and wasting taxpayer money.

This result should not have been surprising. Government planners who undertake “economic development” condemnations have strong incentives to approve takings that benefit well-connected interest groups, even if they end up destroying more development than they create. Usually, as in Kelo, those targeted for condemnation are poor or politically weak. ...