![]() ![]() But nearly any lawful use of real private property can be said to generate some incidental benefit to the public. It holds that the sovereign may take private property currently put to ordinary private use, and give it over for new, ordinary private use, so long as the new use is predicted to generate some secondary benefit for the publicââ?¬â?such as increased tax revenue, more jobs, maybe even aesthetic pleasure. In moving away from our decisions sanctioning the condemnation of harmful property use, the Court today significantly expands the meaning of public use. Indeed, it could not so claim without adopting the absurd argument that any single-family home that might be razed to make way for an apartment building, or any church that might be replaced with a retail store, or any small business that might be more lucrative if it were instead part of a national franchise, is inherently harmful to society and thus within the government’s power to condemn. Here New London does not claim that Susette Kelo’s and Wilhelmina Dery’s well-maintained homes are the source of any social harm. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of propertyââ?¬â?and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. ![]() Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgradedââ?¬â?i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the publicââ?¬â?in the process. Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. ![]()
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