Two Years After Kelo v. New London

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

Quote:

From the edge of the Thames River in New London, Conn., Michael Cristofaro surveyed the empty acres where his parents’ neighborhood had stood, before it became the crux of an epic battle over eminent domain.

“Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”

That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, announced it would leave the city just eight years after its arrival led to a debate about urban redevelopment that rumbled through the United States Supreme Court, and reset the boundaries for governments to seize private land for commercial use.

Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

The announcement stirred up resentment and bitterness among some local residents. They see Pfizer as a corporate carpetbagger that took public money, in the form of big tax breaks, and now wants to run.

“I’m not surprised that they’re gone,” said Susette Kelo, who moved to Groton from New London after the city took her home near Pfizer’s property. “They didn’t get what they wanted: their development, their big plan.”

TL;DR: the case on which the Supreme Court decided that Eminent Domain can be used to transfer private property to other private entities if it is considered to benefit the public good (even in indirect terms re: job creation) has turned out to be a waste of time and money for New London.

b-b-b-b-but, what do you mean capital is transient?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Thanks for linking this. I'm going to take some time and read the opinion from the case, but I know there have been other cases where judges have appealed to a strict separation of powers as justification for not acting against a governing body.

Since the article goes on to say that after that decision 43 states passed additional statutes protecting property rights against a similar abuse, it seems like there's an argument there that things worked as intended.

Sucks for these people though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.