Steve Greenhut is a Southern California reporter with much experience in the field of eminent domain, so we welcome his article on an ongoing effort in California to revive redevelopment under a slightly different name. You may recall that redevelopment was abolished in California a short time ago when Governor Jerry Brown persuaded the legislature to do so, not because of his respect for private property rights, but in order to get his mitts on the millions that until then were being diverted from municipal tax revenues, and went into the pockets of redevelopers and municipal bond holders in order to create private, profit-making development projects, usually, but not always, shopping centers, car malls, etc. Brown wanted to divert that money to the State in order to plug some holes in the state budget.
Greenhut has now written an admirably concise article on this subject, relating the sneaky political efforts to revive redevelopment in California. In appears in the City Journal as Redevelopment Resurrection, City Journal (California), May 22, 2014. You can read it by clicking on http://www.city-journal.org/2014/cjc0523sg.html Do it. It’s a good read and reading it will be worth your while.
Follow up. Another article that strikes the same note and reminds us that the bad guys never sleep, see Dana Berliner, Eminent Domain Abuses Are Making a Comeback, Wall St. Jour., May 16, 2014. Dana Berliner, of the Institute for Justice and the author of this piece, was a lawyer for the property owners in the case of Kelo v. City of London (2005), so she knows whereof she speaks.