Friday, June 24, 2005

Wal-Mart and Target have apparently been making use of eminent domain to get room for stores, which is the use approved yesterday by the Supreme Court. Anyone else scared yet?

My problem with this is similar to the problem I have with impatient speeders. I really don't mind people speeding, but if it's a 2-lane 55MPH road, and the right lane is moving at 50MPH, I think my right to drive 55 (and the right lane's right to drive any speed they're comfortable with over the minimum speed) supercede the right to drive faster than the speed limit. Similarly, I don't want someone else's right to improve the value of their property (which, granted, is a more legitimate concern than speeding, as well as legal) affecting my right to own my property. That's a very dangerous precedent.

Had a good discussion with Mike about how this could be used to take what I think the law calls "blights" - non-profitable businesses, run-down unlivable properties - and create economic developments that are better economically as well as aesthetically and quality-of-life (an area of his town that did this even included subsidized housing in the new development). I can see that working to everyone's benefit in the right scenario.

But the government determines the compensation paid. And if the goal of government is to raise business tax revenue, what about if KMart's running a store, but the local government believes a Wal-Mart or Super Target would do better and pay more taxes? Wouldn't this principle allow them to take the store and hand it to a competitor? This might seem outlandish, but it's not unreasonable to imagine a company attempting this, and a greedy/cash-starved locality cooperating.

Would there be limits on the practice of using eminent domain for private development that we could set to prevent abuse? For any libertarians out there, is there any situation where this would be tolerable to you? Looking forward to any comments.
posted by Unknown 1:48 PM | 0 comments