Eminent Domain and Redevelopment: Down in the Dumps

Remember New London, Connecticut, the dying industrial town that threw property rights under the bus thanks to 2005’s notoriously awful Kelo decision? I’m sure your blood pressure can answer that question. So, after the city was victorious in its case against homeowners, its planned redevelopment plans fell through after Pfizer closed its adjacent research facility. The cleared field that was once occupied by historic single-family homes became a home only for waist-high weeds and feral cats, as I noted on the five-year anniversary of the decision last year.

Amazingly, things have gotten even worse. Via Reason‘s Damon Root:

Yes, the land the city seized from private property owners is now literally a dump.