Physical Address

304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124

Tag Kelo

Almost-Thanksgiving list

Unfortunately, none of these things are really things to be thankful for: 1. 81% of Americans disagree with Kelo v. City of New London in a 2009 survey, with the wording being quite generous to the pro-takings side. 2. Who possibly could have thought this was a good idea? It’s like they took every bad publicly-subsidized megaproject idea they could think of and rolled them into one. 3. NYU’s plan to build a forth tower in the middle of I. M. Pei’s three towers in Greenwich Village (discussed here by commenter Benjamin Hemric) has officially died, the death kneel coming from Pei himself. NYU’s plan B is to build the tower on a plot that they already own and can develop as-of-right. They’ll be tearing down a supermarket to build it, but who still eats food these days anyway? 4. “…there isn’t a single grocery chain store within [Detroit’s] city limits.” 5. Apparently the kiosk tear-downs in Moscow were a result of nothing more than Mayor Sobyanin’s verbal order, and the kiosks are being allowed to reopen until the city can formally close them. The unaccountable government-by-fiat of the USSR dies hard.

Using eminent domain to blight neighborhoods

by Stephen Smith The Weekly Standard has a comprehensive and compelling piece of investigative reporting on Columbia University’s attempt to acquire 17 acres in the heart of the Manhattanville section, north of its Morningside campus. The tale is a classic example of eminent domain abuse – the university worked hand-in-glove with the government to designate the area as blighted and eligible for eminent domain action, and the university’s lawyers pushed the limits of rational argument so far and yet look like they’ll probably come out on top. But perhaps more importantly in this process of acquiring the necessary Manhattanville land on which to build its gleaming new Campus upon a Hill (and under which to build a mammoth garage complex) is not the explicit use of eminent domain, but rather the threat of the land being taken by force. Whereas Columbia’s initial land acquisitions before the expansion plans were made public were probably not made under duress, as time went on, Columbia’s plans became known, and, as a holdout landlord’s leasing agent put it: “At some point along the line, with all of these concerns, the knowledge that Columbia University can or will invoke eminent domain has caused [ground floor retail renters] to seek out alternative space arrangements.” This is a phenomenon that affects all negotiations with the government and big institutions like Columbia – and, post–Kelo, even private buyers – and which makes it very difficult to be sure that the owner didn’t sell for less than they’d have liked (or, indeed, might not have wanted to sell at any price). As it is, the land that Columbia has already acquired – 70% of what it wants – is largely vacant and most definitely more “blighted” than the land it wants to buy, however the relevant (and irrelevant) acronymed […]

Euclid’s Legacy

While well intentioned, like many progressive interventions of the eary 1900s, zoning has contributed to sprawl (which has begun to be demonized by progressives over the recent decades) and served to inhibit the vitality and diversity of urban neighborhoods. The triumph of the core philosophy behind Euclid vs. Ambler later enabled destructive urban renewal projects using eminent domain to displace entire neighborhoods, the emergence of unfriendly NIMBY activism, and more recently helped give legitimacy to the decision in the highly controversial Kelo v. New London Supreme Court Case. Steve at Urban Review STL, a Saint Louis-based urbanism blog, wrote a great summary of Euclidean Zoning in the US. The solution to these urban ills was zoning. Cities would create “land use” maps segregating industrial, office, retail, and housing. Early efforts were often used to keep industry from spoiling more pleasant areas of town. In Ohio the Village of Euclid, a Cleveland suburb, enacted zoning in 1921 to keep Cleveland’s industry out of its jurisdiction. A property owner viewed the restriction on the future use of their land as a “taking” by the government and filed suit. The case, Village of Euclid, Ohio v Ambler Realty, went all they way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lower court had ruled the zoning law to be in conflict with the Ohio & U.S. Constitutions. The Supreme Court, however, disagreed and reversed the lower court’s ruling. Their November 22, 1926 ruling declared use zoning as legal. Since then it has been known as “Euclidean zoning.” In the 82 years since the Supreme Court validated the zoning ordinance for the Village of Euclid, Ohio we’ve managed to take a simple concept — keeping out heavy industry — to a point beyond reasonable. Cities and their suburbs now over regulate uses on land. Residential areas, […]

Trending now

A self-defeating argument
Texas MUD
gentrification
Only 2 Ways to Fight Gentrification (you’re not going to like one of them)
The problem with “public” transportation