Category: Blight

If you can’t define it, you can’t use it: Part 3, toward the brighter future

25 March, 2010 (09:56) | Atlantic Yards, Blight, Cities, Eminent domain, Law, New York City, Policy, Regulation, Theory |

[Continued from the preceding Part 1 and .Part 2.]   By: David A. Smith   By now, two days into what has become a three-part post, readers may be ready to consign eminent domain for economic development (ED4ED) to the dustbin of urban practice.  That, certainly, is where City Journal author Nicole Gelinas would be, [...]

If you can’t define it, you can’t use it: Part 2, my neighborhood, blight or wrong?

19 March, 2010 (09:53) | Atlantic Yards, Blight, Cities, Eminent domain, Law, New York City, Policy, Regulation, Theory |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   By: David A. Smith   As we saw yesterday, using as our text a protracted City Journal editorial essay by Nicole Gelinas, when eminent domain is used for economic development (ED4ED) with a private developer as the implementing party, the potential for mischief is simply enormous – because the [...]

If you can’t define it, you can’t use it: Part 1, the blight-line test

18 March, 2010 (09:51) | Atlantic Yards, Blight, Cities, Eminent domain, Law, New York City, Policy, Regulation, Theory |

By: David A. Smith   Is blight, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder? Houses to be condemned to make way for Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Look blighted to you?   Or is blight just a planner’s word for a city’s natural messiness?   Does this look blighted to you?   Though the question [...]