In June, 2005, the Supreme Court infamously decided that cities could condemn peoples’ land to give to private developers provided the government had written an economic development plan for the project. In response to arguments that many previous such plans had failed, the Supreme Court merely said that “we decline to second-guess the City’s considered judgments about the efficacy of its development plan.”
Susette Kelo, who fought New London’s plan for her Fort Trumbull neighborhood.
Flickr photo by cereza juana.
Three years after the decision, no one had to second-guess the city’s judgments. Instead, it was clear that they were wrong. The homes of Susette Kelo and her neighbors have all been torn down or removed. But, except for the remodeling of one government building into another government building, virtually no new development had taken place in the Fort Trumbull district by May, 2008.
