Taking of Private Property for Public Use

I'm watching a video on c-span about the abuses of eminent domain to seize federal public housing to reduce black population. Most of us probably feel eminent domain in the taking of private property can certainly be unfair, particularly as it destroys homes and neighborhoods in the name of public good. But this is different--it's about taking federal public housing.

Perhaps you recall, if you're from Illinois, all the neighborhoods that were destroyed in the 40s and 50s because they were "slums" and required "urban renewal." Cabrini-Green is famous. Huge, impersonal, Soviet style architecture blobs were erected. Families and neighbors were scattered. Then 40-50 years later, those buildings came down, the families and neighbors were again scattered, and the yuppies moved back into prime real estate in Chicago. The friends of the Chicago Housing Authority probably did quite well--and may even be serving in Washington DC these days.

As public housing developments go, Cabrini-Green was never the largest, toughest or most troubled in Chicago. It was, however, the closest to the city’s rich and influential neighborhoods and perhaps the most widely known housing development in the country. It was made famous by the 1970s CBS television sitcom “Good Times,” which was set in Cabrini, and it also became known for its gang wars and headline-grabbing crimes — prompting Mayor Jane M. Byrne to move into the development in 1981 with her husband and a large contingent of police officers.

Taking of Private Property for Public Use - C-SPAN Video Library

Notice how young and articulate the first speaker, Ilya Somin, is. He's a Russian immigrant who came to the U.S. at about age 9--he still remembers life in the Soviet Union. Wish our home grown children did this well--and could preserve and protect as he has the ideas of the importance of private property and free markets or even the rights of people who must live in public housing. It would be a good project for a young person to track some of the wealth created for unions and building trades of condemning, building and then condemning again and rebuilding again in the same neighborhoods. And don't forget the freebies and tax rebates that the city government hands out.