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I really think that's what this is all about. The city of New London's website says that it is "not just willing, it is eager to assist with the development of new businesses."

The problem is that the majority appears to think that the legislature (or in this case, the private, unelected development company) should be given a great deal of deference in the decision of what would be best for the city. Who is to say that these people aren't in Pfizer's pocket? Who is to say that the city council isn't?

I've blogged on this isse and included large excerpts of the Court's 58-page decision, including both O'Connor's and Thomas' dissents. Here are the first and last paragraphs:

OK, Hell has officially frozen over. I agree with O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas in the eminent domain case of KELO ET AL. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON ET AL (slip opinion, .PDF). I agree with Justice O'Connor's eloquent dissent (which Justices Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas joined) almost in its entirety. Justice Thomas picked far more nits in his separate dissent and I found the bulk of his reasoning questionable, but even so, I can find some few points with which to agree.
The dissenters took particular note that the petitioners in this case were lower-income people living in an economically depressed -- but not "blighted" -- neighborhood, upon which the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had set its sights. The city of New London, CT successfully argued that the eminent domain taking of private property (in this case, residences which had been in their respective families for several generations) could be justified even when there was no direct public benefit beyond being part of a larger economic revitalization plan.
[major snip]
This decision is a travesty, and I hope it is revisited and corrected quickly. Otherwise, the corporate owners of our government officials will call up their lackeys in the city halls and state houses to wipe out entire neighborhoods on the strength of vaporous promise of jobs and increased taxes. The Court has cut a faustian deal with developers to keep inflating the real estate bubble, but the Court's soul is not all that is at stake.

You can see the entire very long post here.

There is also a very good post on the Daily Kos disagreeing with this decision, which has aerial photos of the area in question and goes into some depth about the specific neighborhoods. I have also crossposted there (I am a Kossack, after all). :)

O'Connors dissent is not very well done. Thomas is much more to the point. O'Connor hems and haws that private property can be taken with the intent of turning it over to other private owners but not in this case because the citizens in this case have less wealth than the vulchers.

Poor reasoning, the 5th Amendment is clear and Thomas explains it, private property rights are just that rights that governments can not abridge absent a compelling reason and "public use".

I suggest you read the dissents again.

The Court has cut a faustian deal with developers to keep inflating the real estate bubble

Only the commercial real estate will be worth anything as big investors sell these to each other and charge confiscatory rents from leaseholders. Moderate residential urban property on the other hand will have no market.

Prices will drop because developers will no longer need to compete in the open market for it. And no one will want to buy to live in houses whose condemnation is only a matter of time. I believe that over the next few years urban single residential property will drop to values comparable to rural acreage with the current residents driven to abandonment by property taxes, which won't drop, and eventually the bulldozer. It ensures that individual home owners will never again profit from location and surrounding development which will drive prices down rather than up.