Eminent Domain: Is It Good Planning?

"New Haven needs improved schools. But the 10-year, $1 billion school construction and renovation program looks suspiciously like a case of the city's auctioning off large portions of itself mainly to procure hundreds of millions of dollars from the state. Developers, contractors, architects, and school administrators all benefit nicely, but neighborhood well-being and sound planning principles are almost entirely ignored.... The mayor has failed to give the professionals in the City Plan Department the authority to make sure the planning of each new or expanded school enhances, rather than detracts from, its neighborhood."