How Eminent Domain Destroys Neighborhoods
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
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Resources:
A. Pritchett, W. E. (2003). The public menace of blight: Urban renewal and the private uses of eminent domain. Yale Law Policy Review, 21(1), 1-52.
B. Dreier, Peter, "Bonston's West End: 35 years after the bulldozer" (1995). UEP Faculty & UEPI Staff Scholarship. scholar.oxy.ed...
C. Frieden, B. J., & Sagalyn, L. B. (1991). Downtown, inc: How America rebuilds cities. MIT press.
D. Marc Fried & Peggy Gleicher (1961) Some Sources of Residential Satisfaction in an Urban Slum, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 27:4, 305-315, DOI: 10.1080/01944366108978363
For more information and images, check out The West End Museum: thewestendmuse...
Produced by Dave Amos in sunny Sacramento, California.
Edited by Eric Schneider in cloudy Cleveland, Ohio.
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If they hadn't destroyed that area, it would be a really desirable downtown neighborhood now. Aaaand you just said that as I was typing.
Spooky!
Yeah but then there would be endless articles about how the EVIL rich white people gentrified the place.
That’s impossible to know.
Same thing with the west end in Sacramento around 1960
@@JamesDavis-mb1jw I'd bet your life on it
I have somewhat the feeling, that a lot of things in urban planing during the 50s and 60s went wrong. Building highways through cities, parking everywhere, destroying public transportation systems because they were "car unfriendly", demolishing poor minority neighbourhoods for these projects, the suburban sprawl, etc.
Erlyn Durano actually by the end of the urban renewal craze, about 1968, the oldest boomers were only 23 years old, so for the majority of it they were just kids or teens. Urban renewal was mostly initiated by men born from the 1890s-1930s
Most of what you just said has to do not with principle-based urban planning but with GM's plot to sell cars by making them more needed.
@@dankhank8569 apologies for my ignorance
A lot of historical buildings were destroyed in that period too
@@somixedaidentitycrisis1622 A lot of clean bedsheets were ruined with your period also. Learn something new to write I've seen you post this same bullshit on 5 different videos you imbecile. The common link between you and my jizz is I'm always disgusted after I look at you.
We lost our home of 31 years to eminent domain. It was a nightmare. Ours was just for a road, but really to appease a wealthy land owner who wanted a road on the side of his property, and not through the middle. Anyway, it was all for nothing as nothing on the land was ever developed, just moving a road on top of where our house was.
@@adrianalob7091 Nobody really is in eminent domain. We had a lawyer, so we were lucky to get out of there with 70% of our property value. They send in environmental experts, etc, to say you damaged the land. They get many people out for around 30%.
He probably just wanted to get rid of an “undesirable” neighbor.
@@sunshineimperials1600 He or his ilk never lived there. We're talking about a family in the u.s. that owns a lot of land simply for development deals.
@@Pantheragem that's terrible. sounds like a gov sanctioned robbery by the wealthy
@@redapproves1330 Yes. That's not what it's original purpose was, but it's how it's been perverted.
The west end was very unique filled with beautiful theaters, churches and rare architecture not to mention communities that are forever lost. The new State building is an eyesore in this once beautiful district.
Exactly. And again the 'irony': it probably would have made more profit in the long term to preserve the buildings!
Michael-Francis Polios But the growing popularity of dense rowhouse neighborhoods may be a reaction to urban renewal
A similar kind of ``urban renewal`` was undertaken in the bad old 50`s, 60`s and 70`s in parts of London and the irony of the whole thing is that these areas that suffered this fate are now the most undesirable and the areas that escaped the ``Utopian`` vision are now the most desirable and expensive to live in. Proves the total failure of planners and modern architecture.
Paul Lewis I mean the fact that they built everything out of concrete and as a result everything was pretty ugly was probably the biggest mistake I’d say.
I think when planners and architects have a utopian vision, they’re as much envisioning what people could be like, as they are thinking about the project could be like.
They take in the idealistic vision of how people will respond to the architecture they’re designing rather than remembering that their future residents will be real, flawed people. Not everyone is going to be a perfect smiling happy person, who’s willing to follow all the rules of the new development exactly the way you want them to.
At one point, they were planning on knocking down 100000 houses in order to widen south circular road so they could turn it into a motorway. Luckily, the project ran out of money before it was completed.
Probably more the planners. Architects, good ones, study people as well as buildings and know the kind of buildings they need. Of course some of them want to control people with their grand designs. Look at how poorly many low-rent large apartments worked out.
Most of the problem with old urban renewal was the bland cookie cutter architecture and in the case of public housing was a lack of funding for upkeep.
Eminent domain is when you do that thing we don't like about communism, but we do it for profit so it's okay.
@Emil Sorensen: Exactly.
@@maxant4285 communism always officially does this for benefiting most people and for the public interest
And on top of that it allows people who do it to never say it was because they are a bunch of racists
Ahhhh America, god it's beautiful 👍
@@Allyouknow5820 Handy, isn't it? sigh....
@Edward Well no. Everyone owns everything as a collective so it was never yours to begin with.
Of course, a wealthy neighborhood would never have to worry about 'eminent domain'...
No, they have to worry about "vibrancy" that is so good it has to be forced.
Because they TAKE CARE OF THEIR STUFF and aren't a BLIGHT. Got it?
@@sprinkhole58 Yes, because poor people have such abundant resources to care for their stuff... A poor person's 'stuff' is just as, if not more so, important to them as it is to anyone else, and their homes are just that - homes: places where they raise their children, celebrate holidays, live their lives and in number, form neighborhoods.
Yep ... just spend another $500,000 of tax payers dollars and build around those neighborhoods. No worries ... we'll take care of it ... all good.
$5,000,000
It was great to collaborate with you again. I was glad I could FORCE my way into your video and TAKE IT OVER. :)
How ironic!
They're currently using eminent domain in Providence, to acquire a lot being occupied by a group of homeless citizens, in order to "turn it into an arts center".
In this case the blight is the concentration of a homeless population that they'd rather disperse amongst the city, as to appear we don't have a housing crisis at hand.
A similar thing happend in Chicago when they built the interstate highways. They cut through neighborhoods demolishing many homes and displacing many people.
Chicago is a great example, but almost all major US cities infected... er, affected by the interstate highway system suffered a similar fate.
@@indy_go_blue6048 The US numbered highway system already guided interstate traffic and used streets to guide them through cities. The interstate highway system was a mystake or At least we should've built them around and not thruogh cities
I just find it fascinating how we have the right to speech, arms, plead the 5th, attorney, etc. but the land under us can be taken whenever Uncle Sam wants it to.
@slapdatpuck88 I find it funny that us Americans talk about "rights". All humans literally only have one right, the right to use your lungs to attempt to physically breathe air. That's it. Everything else can be withheld or taken away by anyone.
@slapdatpuck88
A better example is that the gov can declare your birth certificate to be false and strip you of your citizenship at any time.
They were looking to questioning any birth certificate that was within
300 miles of the border.
@slapdatpuck88
I will accept that.
Just saying, none of our rights are written in stone.
Not really. They have to build a case against you.
Seems like you guys are not as "free" as you all advertise you are.
"Public use" meant roads, harbors, fortifications, etc. -- structures owned by the government, not privately owned structures.
Uhhh, like the highway system the America built by tearing down African-American communities on purpose in the 50s and 60s?
@@PHRCpvh -- Naturally they took the cheapest land -- the homes of poor and working class people. In New York City it was a Jewish neighborhood ; in Boston it was an Italian one.
@@kevinbyrne4538 correct with the exception of a few white groups
But most was african Americans
Government would never abuse overarching and total power though, would they?
thats why theres the 2nd amendment, its so that you can fight back against a tyrannical regime.
Replace "government" with "insert pretty much anything here" -- and -- yes. They would. Which is why it's important to maintain the balance of power between all types of organizations and people.
@Blah b I DO NOT own a gun because I live in the UK which has some of the strictest gun laws yet crime is soooo much higher than in places where gun ownership is a RIGHT and trying to call me a nazi wouldn't work either because I despise all violence against any ethnic or religious group BUT I think that violence towards a totilitarian regime that locks people up for having a "bad opinion" or owning something (like a gun) that is deemed too unsafe.
@@wclifton968gameplaystutorials stop watching Hollywood movies bruv. by one owning a fucking gun yall cant fight militaries. THEY HAVE DRONES , BOMBS!
That’s what happens when you allow corruption to exist. Ban money in politics
Pittsburgh destroying the black neighborhood called The Hill District was pretty bad. Still can feel the effects to this day.
There's an odd thing here in Australia where the Commonwealth Govt. has to pay market cost if they want land, but some states can just take the land without payment
Same here in Lebanon, lands that were under the Ottoman empire are considered government property and the owner is only entitled to building and/or tree compesation, whereas lands under the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate are considered private property and entitled to full compensation.
I think that’s only fair, as long as the price is reasonable and not inflated to exploit the situation. Possibly even an adjusted historical cost would be better in come cases. (American)
Eminent domain shouldn't be taken unless it's for something like public parks, public railways, public transit routes, roads, and to preserve historic buildings (which is often the opposite currently) but now it seems to be abused to give property to universities, gentrification projects, developers and alot of other abuses that should be restricted
Ps that city hall building is ugly
So it's an abuse when an old-fashioned, inefficient, dangerous, polluting or unnecessary selfish private land use, is replaced with the common good?
It's better to have one wealthy predatory shareholder's luxury mansion sitting in a place where using Eminent Domain to seize, there could be 150 middleclass families living there?
@ I'm confused as to what you're saying
Christian eminent domain should never be used
Either make a deal with the property owner or you don’t get the land. Property rights is the fundamental core of capitalism.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 i think it should be avoided as a last resort but if the property is absolutely needed or if it's a historical building that at risk of being lost then i think the government can step in
Eminent domain should only be used for actual infrastructure or public use.
Agreed
Uhohhotdog Gaming what if you want to restructure the city so you can fit in more people and businesses?
Christopher Sanders I don’t see any reason to force people out of their homes just to increase density in that one spot. If a developer wants to build they can choose another spot or offer the people a better deal.
If you desperately want to increase density then the government can build public homes in that spot instead which would fall under public use.
Why should it be used at all?
Mario D`Angelo one to protect the environment from urban sprawl and to generate more tax dollars per square foot to pay for public transportation so more people can use that rather than car travel. The bottom line is we arent really serious about climate change and all of our talking and effort is pointless if we dont actually stop urban and suburban sprawl.
I live in a fairly rural area, but our town has been growing a lot in the last years, my neighbor owns some land that is used to raise cattle, our town used eminent domain without his agreement, to aquire some of his land, and built subsidized housing on it. It wasn't a whole lot of land, but still...
Corbin Garrett tbh that sounds like a good trade off? Subsidized housing> cattle grassing when it comes to a city....
Now its a whole new discussion if the land wasn’t used efficiently or for something Not benefiting the public
CrazyDragy Consent is most important
I agree with Crazy Dragy. That is the exact opposite of the case in this video, and a PUBLIC INTEREST USE of Public Domian: the exact reason it was probably put into the US Consitution. What alternative do you suggest?
What are good uses of public domian then? Public Transport, Infrastructure, Public or Middle & Lower income Owner-occupied Housing who need somewhere to live. That is not an abuse of power. It is abuse of power & Public Interest & Democracy that ae the issues, not consent of the home or land owner (consent of the public or the city? Yes)/
@@YOTSUBA_desu I don't agree - unless you mean Consent by a Council election. The self-interest of a land or home owner may conflict with the Public Interest that's true is it not??
@@pebblepod30 Doesn't matter, the owner's word is final.
The west end in Boston is full of ugly government buildings. The city hall looks AWFUL, it looks like a actual concrete jungle
I AGREE! No one seems to be able to get rid of that ugly eyesore, as architects say it is somehow a "gem".
I for one love Boston City Hall.
@@Col_Crunch Too bad the old City Hall isnt still used for this purpose!
@@OrganNLou While old city hall is a beautiful building, I doubt that it would suffice as a modern city hall for Boston. Its a lot smaller than the current building, which would mean annex buildings and spreading stuff out a lot more.
Boston City Hall has all of the beauty and charm of an artillery bunker.
Why don't terrorists do something useful and blow it up?
Thank you man. You're videos are excellent information. I am a civil engineering major interested in urban development and I am grateful for the work you do
Eminent domain terrifies me. The thought that the government could just decide to take my home from me whenever they feel like it, for no reason, is just scary. I'm moving to Canada.
yeah, canada has eminent domain too.
You do know Canada as well as a ton of nations have eminent domain of some kind, right?
@@dkoda840 Well, damn. I hate my life.
I know that in the UK, an entire town was seized by the government in the 1940s and never returned. They didn't even compensate most of the people who lived there, just local landowners.
This was also done in Bucharest when they built the Palace of the People. They removed a whole neighborhood on a hill in the city to build the parliament building, and didn't even come close to compensating the displaced residents. To make matters worse for Bucharest, the building only looses money.
Well that's socialism for ya. China does the same thing when they want to build a new highway or factory. Also funnily enough most eminent domain cases are in cities which surprise surprise are ran by Democrats. Clearly the left has zero respect for private property
Can you make a video about St Petersburg, it is a very interesting planned capital?
Max Ant You’re wrong.
@@maxant4285
How exactly? It was built from nothing and planned completely. That's not common at all.
@@LancesArmorStriking It actually is. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_planned_cities
I wish the city was never built and the area remained under Sweden.
Dr Nisu Unn Too bad the Swedish empire neutered itself to oblivion
So many parallels with the plight of people from poor areas in inner city Glasgow in the 50s. Not only were neighbourhoods separated and torn apart but also land marks suffered the wrath of the council too (many deemed to expensive look after or left beyond repair). A famous area is the Gorbals. It was poor and was well known for slum conditions and families living in just one room.
When the mass exodus came it was a double edged sword as although the new build areas such as Castlemilk, Drumchapel and Easterhouse came with fancy 'new' tenaments and high rise flats with what those at the time would describe as 'luxury' indoor toilets and bath tubs. Local amenities such as shops and recreation facilities were left forgotten about turning the new areas into what became known as concrete jungles. Poverty and social unrest sadly followed the people of the Gorbals to the outskirts of Glasgow. It's only in the past twenty five years has meaningful steps in social improvement been taken. Known as the Glasgow regeneration. Still lots of work to do.
I was born 94. I remember the old grey buildings in Castlemilk disappearing as I grew up. The houses now are much brighter now.
I love your videos! You deserve 10x the subscribers you have now...
i read: "How Eminem destroys neighborhoods"
lol
damn Marshall Mathers... ripping up neighborhoods...
Great video. So much "urban renewal" was rooted in racism. I'm doing my graduate thesis on how the built environment creates de-facto segregation in many US cities. It's amazing to see how the planning decisions of that era have created divides that are still very clear.
Racism requires intent. How can de-facto segregation ever be intentional?
TBH, it sounds to me like one of those racialised slash borderline racist 'studies' that sets out to prove that there is 'systemic racism' and then desperately grasps at correlations before drawing the pre-decided conclusion.
Several ultra-left students at my faculty back in the day had thesis proposals like that rejected as unscientific and political.
You can only ever claim racism if you have proof of racist intent behind an action, that has a causal relation to the effect you observe.
All else is American community college level "Look at this coincidence, therefore evil white people!" horseshit. Like the 'baseball trading cards are racism' research.
I'd like to add that segregation is a natural process. People like to live with their own kind.
I disagree with this. We need eminent domain to get property from both rich and poor people to build projects that benefit everyone not just the poor and the rich.
I always get the impression (based on no science at all, admittedly) that such things are usually less "we did this because racism" and more "we did this because greed. Racism is why no one stopped us".
@@laurencefraser Things rarely happen because of a single reason but because of a complex mix of things, and the mix is different for different people. But it's easier to say "X was caused by Y", especially if it allows some people to say "... and not Z because we'd look bad if we did it because of Z" when Z was also a factor.
Having grown up in rural Europe, these huge american cities always freak me out 🙀
They're awful and contribute greatly to the poverty and unemployment rate. How is one supposed to find a job if he is surrounded by miles and miles of houses with no job potential and almost non-existant public transport?!
Being close to Frankfurt the wide streets stress me most (as they encourage fast driving and discourage walking).
@@RazzerCro
We have public transport and more job availability tho.
There are huge European cities too..
You should visit Guangzhou then in China. The entire Guangzhou-Foshan-Shenzen area is one vast metropolitan area, the largest in China. It easily dwarfs anything in North America.
35 years ago, Shenzen was a fishing village with fewer than 500 inhabitants.
Now, 15,32 million people live there.
check out Donoteat01's Power, Politics, and Planning series for more- he uses city skylines as a graphic tool to explain complicated concepts in long form videos, up to an hour long. in the most recent one, he talk about this sort of urban renewal, including anecdotes from when he himself was an intern in Philadelphia's public housing authority.
The history and long precedent of "public use" shows it should be given the simplest possible interpretation. Taking private property, with market compensation, is therefore authorized for a city hall, but probably unconstitutional for a shopping mall. The notion of use for "public benefit" is a corruption of the historical jurisprudence, however profitable it may have been for the chosen few.
SCOTUS and all the Liberal justices disagree with you, go watch Mr.Beats video on Kelo vs New London
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv and who said the Supreme Court was always morally right, there is a rather famous case "Dred Scott" where they ruled in favor of slavery.
The US system may have one of the best frameworks, but its still limited by the people running it. If Nazis or Communists gained overwhelming popularity they could break the system just as easily as any other system in the world.
Lost my home to I-69 construction, scared to see what's going to happen to my local city
But you only touch on big Eminent Domain Cases. There are tons of small ones, that are much less controversial and people in this audience may be for.
Eddy Sackinger its a hack piece. Its not designed to actually have a thoughtful discussion on eminent domain and real estate in general.
Tbqh the concept of indiviual land “ownership” needs to be rethought. We should own the fact that ownership in the US is not really ownership especially if you cant do whatever you want with the land once you acquire it.
It should be noted that Real estate is the number 1 source of wealth and income inequality... Land is a utility much like food and healthcare and electricity and water. The government should absolutely treat it as such.
It's an 8 minute video... I don't know what you expected? I agree that a video on real estate and land ownership would be interesting, but that's a completely different video.
@@SwiftySanders Are you sure you don't mean that real estate is the number one source of wealth inequality? (Rather than income)
I do believe that housing as investment and housing as utility are contrary to each other. Since housing as investment necessitates keeping housing scarce, but housing as utility means ensuring all people get a home.
However I do see some utility in property ownership. It was useful when I wanted to install ethernet jacks in each of my bedrooms, to not have to go through a laborious approval process, or when we had a window cut into a sliding glass door.
Eddy Sackinger thats the point though there is a concept of its mine and I can do what I want with my property without red tape only exists until the city says you cant and it has to be zoned for that puropse etc... So rather than pretend like we are complete owners lets acknowledge the fact that property ownership is not complete and should be priced accordingly.
The "blight" thing isn't complete nonsense, but simply using it against neighborhoods is. That general sort of thing has been done with abandoned (and maybe decrepit or tax-delinquent) _properties_ in the town I'm currently living in...
And Habitat for Humanity has apparently taken advantage by building _new_ houses in the same places, surrounded by old houses. The administration that was doing a lot of it has been kicked out (as you might imagine, they also had other, worse ideas), but that one thing, the demolishment of abandoned properties, has actually turned out well.
Too bad that immanent domain is normally used for ego projects & developer benefit instead of actual in-place-community revitalization.
If your country feels it must have eminent domain, each application needs to be voted on by the citizens of the city/cities affected not made arbitrarily by a city counsel.
if i had a time machine, one of the first things i would do is stop urban renewal
The Boston city hall is a brutalist monstrosity.
That's hideous! Even the typical plain glass building is nicer than that thing.
“You can’t just demolish an entire neighborhood!”
Minecraft griefer: are you sure about that
I was in the West End a few years ago without realising it, and I came across a museum about the West End. They talk about the history of the area, past, present and future.
In the late 90's, they knocked down a whole neighborhood through eminent domain near me in North Texas. They did it to expand the mall and shopping center. This neighborhood was like any other other in the area. Neither "blighted" or rich. Just a middle class neighborhood with single family homes, similar to one I grew up in a few miles away.
They did the same thing in Urbana, IL in the '60s to build Lincoln Square Shopping Center, one of the earliest indoor shopping malls in the US. It was condemned several years ago IIRC; not having visited Urbana in some time I don't know if it still exists.
How much do I want to bet that mall is now in financial trouble and about to close it's doors...
This concept is referred to as a Compulsory Purchase Order here in the UK.
With the rapid redevelopment of the area surrounding Bristol's main railway station, Temple Meads, the council has once again come up against the derelict 19th century Grosvenor Hotel standing nearby. The council has long wanted to compulsory purchase it, but there is always a cat and mouse game of what if the owners actually decide to develop it? The council want to demolish it and hand over the land for private development alongside another plot of publicly owned land adjacent. The owners were supposed to be turning it into student accommodation. Then they went bankrupt and are being investigated by the government. Shrug.
City Beautiful and Mr. Beat making a video? What did I ever do to be blessed this much?
they did it before I think
This is a really interesting topic, but it feels like this video might have benefited a lot from comparison with other approaches in other cities / countries.
Although we don't call it exactly that, we use "eminent domain" pretty much the same way as the USA here in Norway too and there is basically no restrictions on what it can be used for.
@ are you serious, or is that sarcasm? why break up neighborhoods? why not let people live near old neighbors? if you're serious, i don't get your logic
luciferangelica the point was if “the neighborhood is bad” u dont want it back, so scattering the people is good thing.
@@luciferangelica Take an extreme example: a ghetto. That ghetto is probably full of illegal buildings that must be demolished if you want to live in a law-abiding country. After all, even the poor people in the ghetto must follow the same laws as everybody else. That's just the unfortunate reality. What do you do with them, though? You spread them around. Get their young kids to live in a non-ghetto environment, surrounded by other non-ghetto kids. One of the main problems of ghettos is how the kids themselves stop going to school because... that's just the dominant culture in the ghetto. This kills their future prospects and makes it really hard for them to escape the poverty and the ghetto. Thus, if they get spread around, at least the kids will most likely escape poverty.
It's a similar issue with any poor neighbourhood, even if it's not a ghetto. However, I find it deplorable to remove people from their legally-owned homes just because they are poor. This is why you should do other stuff, like improving the public transport in that neighbourhood. As long as you have enough territories where you've improved the public transport, the poor citizens won't get pushed out and instead will just have more opportunities and will see some richer citizens move in too.
It would be amazing if you could do a video incorporating the Pei Plan and how it basically destroyed downtown Oklahoma City until Maps came along (and even with Maps, there are so many historical neighborhoods and icons that have been lost forever).
I read how eminem domain destroyed beautiful neighbourhoods
the dodger stadium has its history behind it.
Blah b right on
@ Wait what?
@ Oh right, sorry. I forgot Eminem was called Rap god.
Thanks Dave for the awesome content and keep making videos. I’m really enjoying Curiositystream movie picks. I love knowing more about cities and are the other documentaries that you could recommend keep doing what you do
I just found your videos, and absolutely love them. You present the information in a way that is not a big lecture. I would like tonuse your videos for my presentations. I do organizing efforts around housing rights as well as community development. To that end, could you do a video on TIF districts, land capture, and community land trusts by chance?
I've always thought Eminent Domain should only be available for the government to use in an emergency situation, like a strategic location for anti air weapons during a state of declared war.
3:26 left hand side of screen, the pentagram (upside down) in DCs street grid, tells you alot about our govt, the points of the pentagram are monuments , and the freemason building is 13 blocks from the white house
Eminent domain is needed (unless you want to fully privatize all the infrastructure too, including cities), but the tricky part, is 'just compensation'. I don't think using "market value" or relocation to some other place is appropriate at all.
Everyone in Boston hates the city hall plazas including myself. I also live in the west end😩😩😩
Biggest issue is just there is way too many people that move into popular cities and supply is very low
Curious that in a book "Historic preservation" by Tyler, the case Berman v. Parker is described more as something positive. Because if a city could regulate against "ugly" buildings based on aesthetics, it could also regulate for "beautiful" (historic) buildings. This case provided an initial legal basis for the creation of landmark legislation.
2:48 litter not cleaned up will attract more litter, and a smashed window not fixed invites more rocks.
Great video. I’m going through an eminent domain case where the city of Inglewood is using ED to take my property to give to Steve Ballmer, the 5th richest person, for his new Clippers arena! Definitely not for public use because he’s going to make money off the tickets. Ballmer bought the Forum from Madison Swuare Gardens because the owner threatened to fight Ballmer for his use of eminent domain to take the forum. So Ballmer didn’t want to deal with the headache and bought the Forum off the other billionaire because he knew he could have the city use ED to take the rest of the property he needed from small property owners like us.
I have seen both the good side and the bad side of eminent domain. I have seen it used to replace downtown business districts with parking lots, government offices, and shopping malls in San Bernardino, CA, and Newport News, VA. I have also seen it used to create a much loved park in Smithfield, VA, that otherwise would have become a subdivision full of McMansions. Eminent domain is frequently used for highway projects, but it also is used for rail transit projects.
you know though, there's another way to do this. out in moravia, on the north end of cayuga lake there's a nature reserve. they wait to expand it until the neighbors move of their own accord
The Constitution: Private property is sacred
Also the Constitution: Eminent Domain is unquestionable!
They say it's America, but it feels more like Soviet Russia.
4:56 time machine from the past to the future to warn us of the damage done.
"Eminent Domain", I think that'll be my new Doom map's name.
Hey city beautiful can you do a video on suburban cities that started as small towns before world war two. Can you discus the difference of Oceanside, Anaheim, and Chula Vista and other cities founded before Quote master plan cities and how they don't fit in with what people think of a qoute suburban cities. I find it odd that people confuse suburban cities with a typical style post world war 2 development.
You may wanna boost the volume a little bit. at -10.7dB it's way too quiet.
Eminent domain: your house will be sacrificed for a piece of infrastructure
Someone close to the city government at the time wanted the land to develop it for profit, you don't have to look too much into it to find corruption.
The “issue” with the old west end was the lack of tax revenue it generated for the city. Given it’s prime location. A land value tax would have been a much More sensible response.
Well balanced presentation. Worthy of a much more in-depth review. Abuses of Eminent Domain as an oppressive *public* ability to satisfy investment-backed *private* profit expectations are frowned upon in today's society. However, there is another, even more sinister government assisted methodology used to eradicate property owners from certain targeted areas that private developers desire to exploit:
A de facto taking of property as a result of damage or some other diminution of the property’s use or value because of government conduct. This strategy takes a little longer to execute, but is even more profitable for developers and their political confederates.
Example: Flint Michigan Water crisis. This year (2019), the Michigan Court of Appeals in Gulla v. State of Michigan, No. 34001, agreed that the Local & State GOVERNMENT "...specifically decided to send water they knew or had reason to know was unsafe through the pipelines and into plaintiffs’ homes and businesses. Which resulted in the contaminated water flowing into their homes as well as the information available to property owners regarding the safety of the water at various points." (I'm paraphrasing) "They also asserted that *the actions and inactions of the state constitutes a de facto taking of private property without just compensation because the actions of the state were unreasonable, unwarranted, and reckless.* Plaintiffs claimed that the defendants (the State Government) took affirmative actions that directly targeted their properties and they sustained property damage, including irreparably damaged service line pipes, loss of use and enjoyment of their property, and substantial loss in the value of their properties.
Here we have a State and local Government purposely, and with intent of malice, purposely re-routing poisoned water to a minority area with the goal of minimizing the value of that area for future private development. The media tells us it's poor infrastructure, but the Court decisions based on evidence presented (and that anyone here can review on their own and confirm or not), exposes the fact that Government will endanger the lives of citizens to enrich the few. I suggest City Beautiful continue keep this abuse potential in mind via a review of the history of any project.
Now this is a truly evil interpretation of the events! If it's actually proved true, I would really hope to see lots of state and city government high officials be arrested and be left to rot against the whims of inmates who might choose a more vengeful approach...
US state constitutions and state laws largely govern how eminent domain is used - the US Constitution just broadly enables its exercise. Some states are quite restrictive; others less so.
You should have mentioned Albany! Or perhaps do a future video on it? In Albany NY, 98 acres of neighborhoods were demolished for the construction of the Empire State Plaza. This was significantly more area than Boston's West End and in a city significantly smaller. Check out the documentary "The Neighborhood that Disappeared." While having a slight conservative bias, it is an excellent documentary on the Italian neighborhood that was completely demolished in Albany for the Empire State Plaza.
its always interesting to me to see 2 very different channels that I like come together
You make a compelling argument for how eminent domain can be abused, but I think an unanswered question is: what benefit did the west end redevelopment have for the larger city of Boston? It may very well be the case that the residents of that neighborhood were negatively affected (you compelling argue such) but were the demands of the city such that more residents were benefited by the redevelopment than those who were displaced?
This is an important question because your previous video about why housing is so expensive in San Francisco shows a situation in which NIMBYism contributes a non-negligible effect on the pricing (and arguably homelessness) in the city. If the west end should have been protected, what argument is there that the preservation of all of the neighborhoods in Boston should have been maintained as well. If that is the case, then how would the city grow to absorb changes in demographics and culture?
Thus, I think this video is missing a crucial counterargument: the value to greater Boston. I am not saying that I believe that this value is legitimate enough to validate the displacement of West End residents. I am saying that the displacement of some section of the population, when it comes to city expansion, is almost inevitable. The question is whether or not the benefits are acceptable or not.
TH-cam equivalent of imminent domain Is spending a full quarter of the video runtime on marketing Curiosity Stream.
Eminent domain shouldn't be allowed. If the government want to build something, it needs to buy the land from people, consensually. The state should protect property rights, not violate them.
Thanks for the video. I learned a lot about eminent domain.
At least Boston's West End was rebuilt. The worst example of an urban neighbourhood being flattened by the Canadian equivalent of Eminent Domain happened at the end of my street, where a negihbourhood was taken by the government, flattened and then ... they did nothing. Today, there are 2 condo buildings and a museum, but the rest of Lebreton Flats is just empty space, less than a mile away from the seat of the Government that did it. It's absolutely shameful www.pastottawa.com/quartier/lebreton/
I'm interested in how the Pokémon world handles their settlements. True, it's a fictional universe, but the cities easily fit into the Pokémon world given the way they developed. There's even one case in the Alola region where a city tried to develop, complete with its own Thrifty Megamart, only for the place to be wrecked by the local tapu...
Ugh. Was the mid-twentieth century where the US trend of "if it's old, tear it down" started up? Or has that largely stemmed from economics and other municipal policies? Not to say we can't demolish anything, but what about good ol' renovation and reinvention?
Dump the policies of Smart Growth and Car Dependent land use segregated Sprawl! We need TRUE alternatives!
Cyrus992 People naturally segregate, you can’t desegregate all neighborhoods.
we need our public transportation back. because i refuse to drive there are so many places i can't go, but there used to be trains there 80 or 90 years ago
Mixed used buildings would help too.
@@glebsokolov9959 Nothing about segregation is natural, it has never occurred without it being specifically planned and built.
hedgehog3180 Then how come we have no mixed societies today without segregation?
Very much enjoyed the video and found it informative (as I have with all of your other videos that I've had a chance to watch).
You touched briefly on the way urban renewal projects were meant to accomplish some of the same goals that gentrification accomplishes (regardless of whether or not you think those are goals worth accomplishing). Are you planning to do a video on gentrification in the near future? Would definitely be interested in learning more about how that process unfolds and what effects it has on communities.
I did a video that got into gentrification a little bit: th-cam.com/video/ZnCMaXrqMQo/w-d-xo.html But gentrification is such a big topic I could do several videos on it. I'm sure I'll circle back to it again at some point.
No one:
Town Hall: *Hippity Hoppity This Is Now My Property*
I'm from Boston, and a few relatives used to call the West End home before they were forced out to nearby neighborhoods like East Boston in the 50s. It was a unique, dense neighborhood filled with churches next to synagogues, Italian bakeries & Polish butchers, and five-story brick tenements, in contrast to the standard triple-decker dwelling seen elsewhere around Boston. My city has a history to be proud of, but what it did to the West End remains a "blight" in the annals.
Eminent domain gets a bad rap mostly because of that "public use" line from the Fifth Amendment. It's a powerful tool that, if applied correctly, has the ability to truly improve our way of life but rarely does it actually benefit the public. I'm sure a lot of fans of this channel would love if eminent domain were applied to combat rising sea levels by planting marshes, to develop a state- or country-wide high-speed rail network, or to even build more public housing. These large projects would require land, land that was legally acquired and could be called someone's home. But to quote Spock, whose actor Leonard Nimoy was from this very neighborhood of the West End, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".
Taken by the Public and then Sold back to Private Uses is not what Our Framers meant !!
and is B.S.
If its needed for a road, hospital, public building etc.... that’s ok if no other land is available
Urban redevelopment makes NO sense.
Poor, crime-ridden areas will supposedly cease to be poor and crime ridden if the residents no longer live in ugly old houses and instead live in nice new houses.
Do houses really have this magical ability to change people's fortunes and behavior?
There are studies to debunk that. Renovating the infrastructure can have some effect but changing the houses does nothing.
If you kick the poor people out all they will do is move to another poor neighborhood. Apparently politicians fail to realise this simple fact...
They did the same to the Bronx.
Interstate 95
The cross Bronx expressway
I can’t believe that’s what my city looked like only 80 years ago. It’s scary to imagine what it would look like today if North End, Beacon Hill, and South End had suffered the same fate.
We have our own version of that in Stockholm Sweden, the Norrmalm regulation. A large portion of the middle of the city containing hundreads of small streets was demolished to make way for a new american inspirered large scale city centre with relatively large roads all connecting into a central roundabout. The area is now inhabited by banks and shopping malls. It’s not a terrible place to be, but still sad.
My mouse was hovering over the thumbs down for the whole video because there's a Tenants Strike going on against a Greedy Landlord in Los Angeles right now. The Tenants are calling on the city to use Eminent Domain to take the building from the Landlord to stop the insane rent hikes. Very different from what this video puts forward.
Great video featuring Boston's 'West End'!
My hometown, Norfolk, Virginia had most of its downtown and some adjacent areas bulldozed in the 50's -70's in what was among the first use of "Model Cities", "Urban Renewal" and redevelopment programs.
It was called slum clearance, but most of the areas torn down were not slums and even the slums were not "blighted" in many cases.
The city fathers were very aware that Norfolk had a reputation of a wild Navy town, with areas entirely devoted to drinking and carousing.
I did not know that drinking and carousing were crimes against nature. But the city (with massive cash help from the federal government) essentially destroyed all character from Norfolk, turning it into a bland Atlanta wannabe.
There is a story (perhaps apocryphal) that when German city planners were touring Norfolk in the 60's, one commented that he didn't know that Norfolk had been bombed during the war.
It did look bombed out. Much of the property taken lay fallow, waiting for city approval for proper projects. For decades downtown Norfolk was very much a wasteland.
I could go on about my beloved city and the way it was eviscerated, but I'll stop.
I hope you might consider do a video about Norfolk.
Norfolk is an irrelevant town
This is my favorite chanel on TH-cam no doubt
This mostly about lessons learned decades ago. Problems with the abuse of eminent domain, gentrification, and redevelopment are different today. Eminent domain can be a necessary and appropriate tool - but to what end?
It’s hardly urban renewal when you’re actually throwing out urban areas altogether and replacing them with new ones that attract wealthy outsiders.
That's a weird take on the issue. Every country has something similar to the Eminent Domain, but such large scale "renewal" projects would be unthinkable here in Germany. I think you're putting the blame not on what caused this, but on what didn't prevent it.
What?
What? Please structure your last sentence again.
Well, Eminent Domain does not do more than allow what happened. Every country has something like it, yet I mostly hear of those large scale projects from the US (and Asia, but that's another matter) and usually from the first half of the 20th century.
@mikedabucify I don't feel like they said that. While it is true they didn't have the resources to fight it, at least for me it was clear, that that wasn't the issue why the neighborhood finally got torn down
Is this also how Lincoln Center was built ? I read that the homes were taken by the city for this purpose.
Eminent domain is theft. No matter how much money you offer someone for their property, if you still end up having to use the police to force them out of their homes, it is theft. The only way it is not theft is if they voluntarily accept the price you offer.
Did something like this happen in the movie,”batteries not included?” Where the entire neighborhood was demolished?
The only use of eminent domain should be allowed on housing located in dangerous areas. People think it's okay to build wherever they please without realising that they could be putting themselves at risk from environmental disasters and that their presence in the area can be harmful for the biome.
I'm not a fan of bulldozing neighborhoods via crony eminent domain ploys. However, I do agree if every other property owner has accepted free market offers and they are nutting up the whole thing. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Great Job ...
As usual...
Keep on doing this
The U.S. is such a weird mix of "Personal Freedom" and "Authoritarianism"!
Did you just partner with Mr beat???? Oh my god
Cities: Skylines players when they destroy an office/residential/commercial building for a pedestrian walkway
The follies of urban development in the 1950s and 60s let to widespread urban decay in the 70s-90s and expensive revitalization efforts in the modern era to revert the mistakes.