Why We Need Property Rights

The ultimate consummation of the legal trends toward reducing property rights as restrictions on government action came with the 2005 case of Kelo v New London, in which the Constitution’s provision that private property could be taken for “public use” was expanded to mean that such property could be taken for a “public purpose”.  While a public use would include such things as the government’s building a reservoir, a bridge, a highway or some other such facility, “public purpose” could mean almost anything -- and in the Kelo case it meant confiscating people’s homes to turn the property over to developers who would build various upscale facilities.

Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society, p.280