On "Eminent Domain"...

[Peter Frank]

...I lived on Florida's gulf coast for over 20 yrs and it's always the same old story (stay with me on this):

1) Developers move in...

2) Coastal property values quickly rise...

3) Many existing (economically middle class and below) property holders can't afford the sharp increase in property taxes...

4) They're forced to relocate (without added pressure from a local government -- given carte blanche by a decision/ruling by our federal court)...

5) The beach front is then turned into tacky wall of generic condos, restaurants, and T-shirt shops -- while generational families, and the small businesses that support them are run out of their own home town.

Anyone familiar with the real estate market knows that this kind of thing's been happening for a long time in highly prised (not necessarily coastal) areas.

Our national government has now sanctioned local governments to expedite this process (as if the process wasn't pervasive enough before). While it may be just as well that the greedy will now suffer the losses from natural disasters, while the displaced are forced to live on hopefully safer (less expensive) ground -- doesn't our Constitution guarantee us the right to make these kind of decisions for ourselves?

Our right to our property is a huge element of our freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/TheU.S.Constitution/index.shtml

Comments???...

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[McKenzie]

1. this might be of interest to you

it doesn't address your concerns directly. However, it does show that the constant strip mall development pattern beloved of developers ain't sustainable.

<snip>

The land development industry as we have known it is going to vanish in the years ahead. The production home-builders, as they like to call themselves. The strip mall developers. The fried food shack developers. Say goodbye to all that.

</snip>

http://www.kunstler.com/spch_hudson.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. It's despicable. Florida is a mess.

You have property rights nutcase developers who have helicopter pads on their properties, armed to the teeth in their game rooms and would threaten any government entity who would touch the land use of their property; YET THESE SAME PEOPLE ARE THE ONES who are out there trying to fill in every wetland with a strip mall.

What a dysfunctional state.

[AtomicKitten]

3. They BETTER not pull that crap in NO.

My head will explode. I'm getting damn sick and tired of watching the riches walk all over the poor with their sense of entitlement. Not in MY America.

[Peter Frank]

5. Not My America Either!!...

...but watch as the "entrepreneurs" (code word for Bush's financial base) reinvent the old "New" Orleans.

These cats won't be able to resist moving in and changing the unique "Big Easy" into just another big and sleazy sideshow of Burger Kings and Bennigan's.

I hope I'm wrong.


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[bluestateguy]

4. I haven't visited Florida since the theft of 2000

and I won't come back until Jeb Bush is out of office.

[Gman]

6. "without due process of law..."

That nasty little phrase which is perverted/subverted/twisted and rendered meaningless to people by countless megatons of money from non-person corporations.

[Peter Frank]

7. This is the Same Money Tha Drives the Ruling Political Party...

...a party which is eviscerating our Constitutional rights on a daily basis.