[BJClinton]

There is a myth that great national problems can be worked out locally.

No argument there, but this is not a "great national problem" this individual case is local, not national.

Who can take property is not a local issue.

It absolutely is if the use of the land is local. If it were, say, railroads stretching from coast to coast it would be a national issue.

All of this is with just compensation as per the 5th Amendment, of course.

[mware]

DOW down 102.

[Vicomte13]

I wrote: "Who can take property is not a local issue."

You responded: "It absolutely is if the use of the land is local. If it were, say, railroads stretching from coast to coast it would be a national issue."

This is one of those cases where federalism will result in a result so perverse that most advocates of federalism would balk at carrying it this far.

Unlimited local power to condemn property and take it, so long as just compensation is paid, is now the law of the land in the United States. This is likely to become odious to people across the land within a few years' time, and there will be a push to federalize the issue to stop the parade of abuses which are as certain to follow as night follows day.

If you do not have the principle that private land can only be taken for direct government use, but rather have the principle that organized local powers can take land and resell it for profit, with "just compensation" to be decided by themselves, then you will have abuse after abuse.

And since that is now the law, you will have abuse after abuse after abuse. Structurally, the problem is that there is no national limit on what a "public use" is.