Reply #123: Is that a serious question? [View All]

[pnwmom]

The answer is: to make money.

The developers of waterfront property make tons of money, and they do it by getting governments to take the property for them using the laws of eminent domain. In order to do that, they first have to say the property is "blighted." And they can hurry that process along by not enforcing their building codes and other laws. The neighborhood gradually deteriorates until things are bad enough that the government takes it away from the original owners and hands it over to developers who put up fancy waterfront condos where the neighborhood used to be.

And since the original owners are only paid for "blighted" property, they don't get enough money to even buy a condo in their old neighborhood.