George,

It's interesting to note that the Supreme Court's conservative side voted AGAINST letting localities take our home so a developer can tear it down and build a shopping center or an apartment project. It was the court's liberal side that thinks this is a good idea.

The losing minority that supported individual home owners were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Sandra Day O’Connor. Whoever thought we'd be siding with that crowd?

One wonders if the liberal majority did more than merely affirm the constitutionality of urban renewal as practiced in Charlottesville during the Johnson administration, which destroyed the Vinegar Hill and Garrett Street neighborhoods.

As John Whitehead described it in an email, "In Kelo v. City of New London, seven property owners challenged plans by New London, Conn., city officials to demolish their working-class neighborhood of antiquated Victorian homes and small businesses in order to clear the way for private developers with visions of a riverfront hotel, health club and business offices. In a March 2004 ruling, the Connecticut Supreme Court declared that 'valid public use' justified the city’s exercise of eminent domain, based on the thousands of jobs and significant revenue that officials project would be generated by the redevelopment on a 90-acre parcel."

That sounds for all the world like the urban renewal justification embraced by Charlottesville Democrats once. Who can say the time will not come again.

Rey Barry (electronic mail, June 26, 2005)