[ubu]

Tkdietz:

As an employee of a government (albeit not a dept. directly involved in such roadbuilding) I ask you this:

How do you think the government decides which roads get built or widened?

Why, the ones near where the "right people" live, or the "right people" have snapped up all the available commercial property on spec, of course. Now we can add "or all the wrong people live nearby and it can be redeveloped."

Here in Houston, the Grand Parkway's route was determined by publicly allowing "land owners" to donate the property. Of course, those land owners were developers who had gone out and bought the land cheap. Then they donated tracts along the edges of their property--resulting in a route that wanders all over the place (so it's more expensive to build) to ensure ready access to the developments they will create.

And this is despite studies showing a negative economic and ecological impact from the Grand Parkway's development!

[TKDietz]

You cite a bad example. There are plenty of good ones, examples of beneficial and even necessary roads that have been built or widened and in the process required land that had to be taken by eminent domain. Think about some of the interstate highways and so on that would not exist without eminent domain.