60 Minutes Focuses On Eminent Domain

29 September 2003 - 9:00am

Mike Wallace reports on abuses of eminent domain across the U.S., including by the New York Times.

"Cities across the country have been using eminent domain to force people off their land, so that private developers can build more expensive homes and offices that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they're replacing. And this isn't happening just in small towns... But now, people who don't want to sell their homes at any price -- just to see their land go to another private owner -- are fighting back. Correspondent Mike Wallace reports... In New York City, just a few blocks from Times Square, New York State has forced a man to sell a corner that his family owned for more than 100 years. And what's going up instead? A courthouse? A school? Nope. The new headquarters of The New York Times."

Full Story: Eminent Domain
Source: CBS News, September 28, 2003
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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?