One of my favorite books from my childhood was “The Little House,”
the 1943 Caldecott Award winning children’s book by Virginia Lee
Burton. In “The Little House,” over time the city encroaches
upon a house once in the country. But the owner wanted the house passed
down from generation to generation, so the skyscrapers eventually grow
up all around the little house. Today, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court,
the owner of the little house would have no say in the matter. The
skyscraper developers would simply have to show tax-loving
local-government officials that a high-rise would bring in more tax
dollars than the little house and the house would be bulldozed. In “The
Little House,” the descendants of the original owner decide to move the
house back into the country, but it was their choice, not government’s.
A man’s house is no longer his castle. Isn’t this one of the issues we
fought a revolution over?