Your Casa Is Wal-Mart's Casa

[davidinalameda]

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/lloyd/


It's a ragged old cliché, but when we lay our heads down at night, there's something to be said for the American dream.

Even if not everyone can buy his or her own home, everyone can buy into the simple fairness of the idea. If you acquired a house and paid your mortgage and your taxes, you had a right to stay there until you decided to sell or were carried out feet first.

But for Suzette Kelo and her husband, the dream became a nightmare of surreal proportions when their community tried to seize their little pink house by invoking the power of eminent domain. This week, their case against New London, Conn., finally got its hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court; it's the first time the high court has addressed the limits of eminent domain in more than 50 years. Her case, along with several other high-profile court battles involving the concept, has attracted a veritable dump truck full of sympathetic press and galvanized a movement of diverse groups that are declaring war on the increasingly common practice of government seizure of one person's private property, only to hand it over to another private entity.

[AllegroRondo]

1. They're trying to do that in my town

taking private homes and the local VFW, only to give it to a developer to build a Home Depot.

[mopinko]

2. .what better example

and what better example of the folly of this than walmart.

[begin_within]

3. This is clearly an abuse of the principle of eminent domain.

[Historic NY]

4. They did that in my town in 1969-70....

took over 1/3 of the town some 8000+ acres and flattened over 100 early 18th century homes and farms for Rocky's jet port. We had an old AF Base that was closed and the MTA scooped it up for NY's new jetport to served NY City. Well after 35 yrs of having nothing out there except wildlife as the plan when bust the state is now trying to use the land for commercial development. The main purpose was to have a buffer zone in the event of a plane crash. There is a local environmental group that has been a thorn in the state & local officials side, protesting any development as the land was to remain wild. Over the years it has become a haven for animals, blue heron, beavers, deer, etc. The DEC runs a hunting cooperative there and the land is used by hikers, horse riders, bicyclists, etc. and now they want to develop it. The trade unions are backing development also. Sure makes one wonder just what the priority is, keep people safe or make money off the land. The airport does have one of the largest runways on the east coast and can handle the space shuttle. I've seen 30 yrs of schemes of development of this airport and so far everything has come to a zero. The philosophy is build more and people will come, heck they done that at the airport proper and still can't keep an airline carrier that doesn't charge more than 3 time what it would cost one to fly out of NY City. Go figure. I take your land for the public good and now the public good is making sure my friends have a place to make $$$.