| | Anti-government posturing aside... The final outcome once again validates Objectivist claims that reality is real: it is integrated and inseparable. The ends cannot justify the means, but the means do determine the ends. Bottom line: the development failed.
The Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London stands as one of the worst in recent years, handing local governments carte blanche to seize private property in the name of economic development. Now, four years after that decision gave Susette Kelo's land to private developers for a project including a hotel and offices intended to enhance Pfizer Inc.'s nearby corporate facility, the pharmaceutical giant has announced it will close its research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut.
The aftermath of Kelo is the latest example of the futility of using eminent domain as corporate welfare. While Ms. Kelo and her neighbors lost their homes, the city and the state spent some $78 million to bulldoze private property for high-end condos and other "desirable" elements. Instead, the wrecked and condemned neighborhood still stands vacant, without any of the touted tax benefits or job creation.
Wall Street Journal November 11, 2009 here.
Whether it is President Obama's dreams of electric sheep or whatever Mitt Romney may be dreaming of, the fact is that whenever any politician talks of "creating jobs" this is what happens. It is why we left Michigan.
We were big fans of NUMB3RS when it was on, and we still watch episodes on disk. When former Gateway CEO and creator of the entrpreneurial incubator Ann Arbor SPARK, Rick Snyder, launched his campaign for governor of Michigan, we did not see his Super Bowl ads. But we caught them on NUMB3RS. "The toughest nerd in politics." Nice. But his actual 20-point program was just more Republican blathering. Rather than hitch our wagon to his star, we got out of Starnesville.
this was not just one community's hard luck, but the inevitable outcome.
Before and after.
 
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 9/23, 9:34am)
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