Via the Wall Street Journal

Big-box retailers have a message for local landowners: Move.

And the command has the force of law, much to the dismay of Darrell M. Trent, a part-time developer in Pittsburg, Kan. Mr. Trent thought he scored a coup this year when he leased part of a seven-acre parcel his family had owned since the 1960s to a local plumbing supplier.

But the city took the property this spring through its powers of eminent domain and handed it to a developer with a different tenant: Home Depot Inc.

Says Mr. Trent: “After having carried it all this time, for them to step in and take it away from me—it really denies me my corporate livelihood,” Mr. Trent says.

Desperate for tax revenue, cities and towns across the country now routinely take property from unwilling sellers to make way for big-box retailers. Condemnation cases aren’t tracked nationally, but even retailers themselves acknowledge that the explosive growth of the format in the 1990s and torrid competition for land has increasingly pushed them into increasingly problematic areas—including sites owned by other people. It Gets Worse

Is this the “urban (or suburban) renewal” of the 21st century? Taking private homes and businesses for private (which may agruably be classified as public) development? This reminds me of the “Poletown” case of 1981, where General Motors and the cities of Detroit and Hamtramck attempted to stimulate job growth by building an automotive plant in the middle of an ethnically diverse neighborhood. In the end, countless homes were condemned and approximately 4000 people were displaced from their neighborhood. That case served as a precedent until earlier this year when the Michigan Supreme Court overturned its ruling from 1981.

I could go on a tirade blasting big box businesses as being harmful to both society and the environment, but I’ll demonstrate some restraint (as difficult as it may be). In any case, eminent domain should ONLY be used as a last resort.

“‘’The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says ’nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.’ This is a tacit recognition of a preexisting power to take private property for public use, rather than a grant of new power.


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