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Over at Balkinization, Mark Graber had this to say about the recent Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London:

"Consider the recent Kelo case, the one in which a narrow Supreme Court majority declared that localities could condemn land for economic redevelopment. Cries of oppression have gone up from the opposition. Lost in the debate have been two simple facts. First, the compensation paid to the homeowners was substantially more than their houses and land were worth on the market. Second, the vast majority of the homeowners voluntarily took the deal, preferred to buy bigger homes or homes in better neighborhoods to remaining where they were. So much for the nonsense in Justice Thomas's dissent about the policy being racist, when it turns out that the vast majority of persons of color living in the relevant neighborhood were pleased that the government paid a premium for the land and houses. Now, it may be unconstitutional for the government to do this or to require all homeowners to accept the deal (though the constant claim that they wanted to preserve their neighborhoods is, again, utter nonsense, since almost all of the neighbors preferred the government deal). Still, it is not oppressive for government to require people to sell land at above market prices when the vast majority of the neighborhood thinks they are getting a good deal."

Well, if the legal test for oppressiveness of future eminent domain actions is going to be whether or not the majority of the people whose land or homes are being condemned think they are getting a good deal, maybe he's correct. But that isn't how I expect things to unfold. Though my instinct is to feel that "absolutist" property rights of individuals should be subordinated to the greater good of a community, I dislike the Kelo decision because I think it gives political subdivisions too much latitude with respect to the need to justify their actions as "public use." I suspect municipalities will begin to condemn land for things like Wal-Marts and golf courses, and they will generally succeed, not because the actions are within Kelo necessarily, but because the people whose land gets targeted will be unable to afford the atttorneys fees to fight long enough or hard enough to prevail.

Eminent domain abuses certainly occurred before Kelo. I am familar with a case where a multiscreen movie theater owner got his town government to appropriate land ostensibly to widen a road, but actually so that he could expand his parking lots enough to get a zoning variance to expand his theater. After the town took title to the land, it turned around and sold it at cost to the theater owner, because "traffic studies" suddenly, miraculously demonstrated that the road didn't need widening after all. After several years and thousands of dollars in legal fees, the family that had its land taken got some justice in the form of some additional compensation, but it wasn't much more than what they had paid their lawyer, and they never got their land back. My fear is that Kelo will embolden government officials to do more of this kind of thing, (sample justification: movie theaters create jobs and are good for the life of a community), believing they can at least survive summary judgment, and maybe even win, if a condemnation is challenged in court. So, I guess mine is a practical rather than philosophical objection to Kelo.