George Will documents here the latest use of trumped up charges of “blight” to take private property from one owner and transfer it to another private owner for “economic development.”
This is happening in many NC cities including Durham as noted here and here.
The Atlantic Yards site, where 10 subway lines and one railway line
converge, is the center of the bustling Prospect Heights neighborhood
of mostly small businesses and middle-class residences. Its energy and
gentrification are reasons why 22 acres of this area — the World Trade
Center site is only 16 acres — are coveted by Bruce Ratner, a
politically connected developer collaborating with the avaricious city
and state governments.
To seize the acres for Ratner’s use, government must claim that the area — which is desirable because
it is vibrant — is “blighted.” The cognitive dissonance would
embarrass Ratner and his collaborating politicians, had their cupidity
not extinguished their sense of the absurd.
In a similar case where Columbia University tried to get the city to use eminent domain to take a “blighted” area for its benefit….
A state court held, 3-2, that condemnation proceedings had been
unconstitutional. The court said the blight designation was “mere
sophistry”: “Even a cursory examination of the study reveals the idiocy
of considering things like unpainted block walls or loose awning
supports as evidence of a blighted neighborhood.”
