June 23 is the anniversary date, and in a press release yesterday the Institute of Justice notes that nothing was ever done with the property taken in that imminent domain case:
The decision stripped any protection against eminent domain abuse by the government out of the U.S. Constitution. If a developer merely promises to pay more taxes on your property, the High Court ruled that the government can take your home, your business or your land and hand it over to that private developer for his or her private use.
The only thing more outrageous than the decision is what happened to the land since then: nothing. As this video demonstrates, the land taken through the Kelo ruling to complement the nearby Pfizer facility is home now to nothing more than weeds and feral cats. And Pfizer, which received a generous package of financial incentives and tax breaks to lure it to New London, closed its facility there in 2010.
Ms. Kelo was a martyr in the fight against the heavy hands of big government and big business working together. She fought and lost, but the silver lining is that many states have changed their eminent domain statutes to provide a little more protection to land owners.
Here's the link to the above mentioned video.
Via futureofcapitalism.com where it was noted that eminent domain is just one way a government can take property. "At least with eminent domain the taking is clear and visible; with zoning and building restrictions, the value of the property is taken away without any compensation, let alone "just" compensation."
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