Re: eminent domain
Nathan Newman wrote:
—– Original Message —– From: “Doug Henwood” dhenwood@panix.com -What I hate is flattening houses and -neighborhoods to make way for big boxes. It’s, you know, wrong, even -if it’s only Nathan’s “rightwing” that agrees.
It’s funny– a thread starts with the question of whether state or federal law should be changed to gut local home rule powers, and Doug suddenly turns it around so that anyone who defends those home rule powers has to also be in favor of every abuse that might happen, when the point is that I’m defending the positive uses of eminent domain and not giving state legislators all control over local planning decisions.
Fuck, I’m not against eminent domain for real public improvement purposes, but I think those should be narrowly defined. Awful things have gone on in the name of urban planning; we’ve just heard some examples from LA, and I know of plenty from NYC and New Haven (the laboratory for urban renewal). There’s a real prob with eminent domain as it’s actually practiced, and it’s not just right-wing cynics playing on crude populist sentiments.
Doug