Author: Timothy Sandefur
It's been four years since the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Kelo v. New London. That case upheld the power of local bureaucrats to seize private homes and businesses and give it away to private developers to advance government-controlled plans for economic improvement. Such plans, of course, do not and cannot work: when government manipulates the economy, it responds not to the desires of producers and consumers, but to political imperatives (as the Cato Institute's David Boaz very effectively pointed out just the other day).
And guess what? Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant whom New London bureaucrats were trying to appease by sacrificing the individual rights of the city's homeowners, has decided to close up shop and move.
Thus, half a decade later, the torn and ruined neighborhoods of New London still remain as reminders–as vacant reminders–of what happens when the coercion of the government, rather than the dollars of private property owners, dictates the use of resources.
Our friend Gideon Kanner has more here.