#Eminent domain microcosm series

Those experiences in mind, officials may one day rue their self-imposed limits, Parlow said. Those vows fly in the face of a rich tradition of eminent domain use – some say abuse – in Orange County.įrom Costa Mesa’s Triangle Square to downtown Brea, officials have used eminent domain to flush out undesired occupants and welcome ostensibly more lucrative projects. But many officials have voted to foreswear the practice even in supposedly run-down locales. The idea of seizing property “strikes at the core of the sense of home ownership and property ownership that I think has been central to the American identity,” said Brad Joondeph, an associate professor of constitutional law at Santa Clara University.Ĭalifornia law requires an area to be “blighted” before it can be condemned for private interests. “The legislative response has just been unbelievable,” said Matt Parlow, a property law expert at Chapman University School of Law. Forty-seven other states have taken up the issue, and 13 federal bills have been introduced.

In California, 11 statehouse bills and two initiatives have been circulated. Moves in Orange County are a microcosm of action at the state and national levels. Locally, many officials say the practice should only be used for public projects, such as road widenings and water lines. In the case, justices for the first time said condemning property for new private development is constitutional because it can create public benefits such as jobs and tax revenue. Six local cities and the county have responded to the high court’s ruling in Kelo v. “I have lost a home before, and I don’t want to lose another one,” Grundke said.Įager to allay concerns like those, politicians across Orange County – mimicking a nationwide trend – have unleashed a flurry of proposals to scrub eminent domain from their playbooks. Last month, she attended a local conference to gather tips for fighting eminent domain. She formed a group, now 600 strong, to protect the property of Laguna Woods Village residents. Supreme Court last year ruled that public agencies can seize homes and hand the land to developers, Grundke’s pain came reeling back. The 1983 foreclosure wasn’t related to eminent domain, but when the U.S. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Photography Collection.Pamela Grundke still groans when she talks of being booted from the Imperial Valley farm where she and her husband tended sugar beets, cotton and alfalfa. All photographs are from the The New York Public Library, The Miriam and Ira D.

#Eminent domain microcosm series

Photograph above, 'bx_1372 port morris / mott haven, theīronx,' from the series borough edges nyc, 2004-2007, by Bettina Johae. The exhibit, on view through August 29, is at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street.

Zoe Leonard photographs document the local character disappearing from neighborhoods, while Ethan Levitas's photographs of people in J, M, and Z subway lines show how trains are a microcosm of the city itself. Bettina Johae took 27 bike rides in all the boroughs to photograph 'the perimeter of each borough along its farthermost accessible path.' Reiner Leist's has taken a photograph from the same Midtown window every day since 1985, and photographs of the shifting Manhattan skyline between 19 are on display. Thomas Holton photographed one family in Chinatown for two years, (photographs taken by the children are also included). Five photographers' recent projects 'deal with the life of the city in terms of passage (of seasons and time, people and place) and exchange (between individual and collective, interior and exterior).' A new photography exhibit examining the shifting views of public and private space, Eminent Domain, opens today at the New York Public Library.