Eminent Domain

[897tgigvib]

In Digit's Sprawl thread this power was mentioned.

Looks like these days business developers can have an old farm using tricks of this. It was originally intended for government to do.

You know, for important things such as building a hiway, or to put up a military base, or some kind of important infrastructure thing that is needed for the public good.

So, seems DEVELOPERS can use eminent domain nowa(really dumb)days.

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Wellp, I have an idea! Howzabout some regular folks get together and eminent domain the developer's houses! That's right! Those hideously designed mansions are most definitely an eyesore! Looga this petition county supervisors. The county has 50,000 voters in it, and it took us 24 days to get 40,000 voters to sign it. That's right. The people want to eminent domain all the developers' mansions immediately!

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It really does gall me each time I hear about how folks throw away their rights. And then, because I am supposedly a person too, my rights are thrown away along with those who want their rights thrown away.

At the present rate of rights being given away it looks like in 100 years most folks will be happy drugged slaves. Will anybody even know what soil looks like in 100 years?

 

[StupidBird]

Um, sorry to break this to you, but IMHO you are a tad optimistic there with the timeline.

 

[so lucky]

Some would say we are drugged slaves now, but just not happy.

 

[897tgigvib]

There will be others here upset at me for even saying it...

...but, one of the reasons I want to live a very long life is just to be able to say, "I tried to warn your great great grandparents but they would not hear it. They were too busy trying to be the bigshots."

Meantime, I'm enjoying some nice tunes from the '60's. Got Pet Clark's tunes going on

 

[digitS']

Ha!

Schadenfreude would be 2nd to looking around and saying, "Hey! We may have gotten it right!!"

Soil, you say Marshall? One thing that I've repeatedly tried to do on TEG is express my amazement over compost. The reverse of this is a feeling that top soil needs to be elevated. Yeah, elevated in our estimation for it! Some have called it "The Work of Life."

Sure, we can make and grow things in compost but when we see it finally decompose into a tiny fraction of what it once was - I think it builds a certain reverence for the soil. Thousands of years to make that top soil and it can be lost in a few minutes to a D8 bulldozer!

Under that "Foundation of Life" - see I can mix my metaphors - is what I like to think of as "unkind subsoil." Life is barely on the margin if it has to live with subsoil. Mixing it with topsoil should nearly be criminalized. Losing topsoil rather than working to build it should also be criminalized.

Let's not!

Knowing what soil looks like in 100 years? Well, it can't be all paved with a petroleum by-product or covered with an aggregate embedded in a cooked limestone binder . . . it takes petroleum to make asphalt and one has to burn a fuel to cook cement. Rain down the pollutants on us and our top soil? Let's not.

Steve

 

[digitS']

I have ordered this book from the library; since I'm #2 on the list, it shouldn't be long:

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth, by Alan Weisman

Alan Weisman is a journalist, not a scientist or an economist. He talks with those people.

Here is a review in the Washington Post: Book review by Fred Pearce

And, an interview with Alan Weisman from Living on Earth.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

It is not just farms that can be taken away. 2008 Ikea tried to use eminent doman to get peoples houses in New Rochelle NY. It was a very run down part of town: many of the home owners where seniors that had lived in their houses for over 50 years. Every night the story was on the news how big bad company wanted to throw people out of their homes. The battle went on for years, and a rare thing happened the home owners won. I guess Ikea figured the bad publicity wasn't worth it. I can see having to use eminent doman for a highway or train route but a store wow.

 

[Smart Red]

Technically. . . the big companies don't take land under eminent domain, the local governmental groups do. However, the developer is promising the community mega-benefits from the new land use. Higher tax base, more jobs, etc. In some places this mis-use of eminent domain has been found unconstitutional, in some places "the greater good" is being used to carry through taking the land.

My ex-limestone quarry is filled with topsoil from all the neighboring fields. Been filling the pit for a good many years. I drive past fields covered with red clay and limestones that are fed with chemicals to get crops to grow. In my gully I've had the backhoe dig 7 feet down and pull up nothing but their rich black soil. That's part of the secret to my raised beds - no imported soil here.

Marshallsmyth, you sound like the Lorax in Dr. Seuss' book crying, "I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues" against the greedy Once-ler. Unfortunately, I fear those great great grandchildren will not understand what you're saying. Their trees will always have been objects in pictures, songs, and poems - not growing in the fresh air.