[PLK]

This is an astonishing abuse of power and would turn out to be a total waste of good farmland.

I agree with the first part of your sentence, but question the second. In Iowa, the government issues CSR's (crop suitability rating) on all farmland. If a farmer chooses to sell his land to a developer, and his CSR is too high, the government will NOT allow anything other than farming to take place on that land. This, too, is an abuse of power, whatever happened to private property rights?

[rwjst4]

Last year the City of Pittsburgh tried to use "Eminent Domain" to forcibly buy out some small businesses from their locations so that the Heinz (Ketchup) Company could move in, since they were running out of space. Fascism. No other word for it.