Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down their 5-4 decision that says, yes, cities can run people out of their homes in the interest of new, private development projects. In general, this means if the local government thinks a new project can boost the tax base or help the city in some way financially, they can give the land over to developers and make you go, giving you "reasonable" compensation on your way out.
My description would give you the impression that I disagree with the Supreme Court. But if there were nine people inside of me I think they would also split 5-4 on this one. Having had this issue hit close to home, I think I've swung from 5-4 in agreement with the Supreme Court to 5-4 against their decision.
I live in Lakewood, Ohio, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland. Our homes are old (mine's from 1928) and many of them are built on postage-stamp lots that don't leave a lot of room for improvements. The majority are 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath homes that fit less and less with people's desires for 5-bedroom, 3 bath homes that they can easily find in the sprawling suburbs to the west, south and east. (They'd go north, too, if that darn Lake Erie wasn't in the way.) For the record, I live in a 5-bedroom , 3-bath home in Lakewood, so I can't complain, but I am in the minority on that count.
The suburb is built out; no new land available. If you're going to build, you're going to tear something down first.
Anyway, a few years ago, Lakewood started planning for the fact that an upgrade would be necessary to stem the tide of people leaving, and to stop putting a larger and larger burden on property owners to keep city services going. Their eventual solution became known as the West End project, which would clear a big plot of land on the city's west end and put in both condos and new shopping including a Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, etc.
Of course people would have to leave their homes for this to happen, and if they didn't take the developer's offer at a bit above current market value, they would eventually be run out, with the blessing of City Hall. (60 Minutes did a piece on this and made our mayor look like a dope, which she wasn't.)
Before eminent domain could be used, though, the citizens of the West End and their supporters got a petition drive together and got an issue on the ballot to stop the project. They got it on the ballot and won, by 47 votes, out of something like 20,000 cast.
The project died, but the bad feelings persisted. As you might guess, from an almost perfect 50/50 vote, those who wanted the project were disappointed, those who didn't thought that those who did were a bunch of selfish people who'd choose a new bookstore and a Cheesecake Factory over the well-being of their neighbors. Some of this feeling still exists today, a year and a half later.
I voted to kick those people out.
From outside, it's easy to take the moral high ground and say, how horrible! But live in a city like mine and you'll see it's a tough call. Lakewood is great, I can be in downtown Cleveland in 8 minutes, the people are great, it's got an urban vibe while also being family-friendly. I owned a home in Oak Park, Illinois, a similar suburb to Lakewood that butts up to Chicago, and our home value skyrocketed in the four too-short years I was there.
But people wanted to be close to the city in Chicago, it was a selling point. That's not the case for the majority of Clevelanders, who've lived here their whole lives and see escape from the city as a worthy goal. In a suburb like Lakewood, there's a feeling that we need to do something to attract people back our way, and the West End project was a way to do it. So I voted for the project, to give the developers the land plus a tax abatement, knowing the whole thing could be a collosal failure and these people would have been forced to move for something that did no good. I wrestled with the decision a lot, but I guess I thought it's better to do something than to do nothing, and I was willing to take the guilty conscience if it might mean a revival here.
Today I feel differently. After seeing how this tore the city apart, how it made enemies of friends, or at the very least spawned very uncomfortable relatons with neighbors, I would vote against it if the opportunity arose again. But I still see the other side -- if one person holds up a whole project that would benefit everyone, is it wrong for a city to force that homeowner to go? I don't know.
This is a long post without a completely coherent point of view. That's what the issue of eminent domain brings out in me - wishy-washyness. I wish I could just grab the moral high ground that so many others do, but it's a tough one. The Court's 5-4 split shows I'm not alone.
