Poletown condemnation case has ruled too long in Michigan

Detroit Free Press ^ | Feb. 10, 04 | TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

[freedomdefender]

One writer called it "the Dresden of eminent domain cases."

Two decades ago, Detroit's Poletown neighborhood was leveled to make way for a General Motors Corp. auto plant. Turned to rubble was an area of more than 1,200 homes, 140 businesses, six churches and a hospital.

[Cboldt]

If government can take property from some people and give it to others, those with the best lobbyists will win, and property rights will be subject to the whims of politicians and the bidding of interest groups.

It can, it did, and did so with the blessings of the Michigan Supreme Court. See aforementioned Poletown case.

AFAIK, the promised GM factory never approached its promised size or employment levels. The Poletown decision stunk then, and it stinks now. But there it is, out in the open for all to see for themselves.

[Revolting cat!]

What was amazing about this case, I remember, was the stone dead silence from the usual leftist conservationists, ecologists, preservationists, while 100 year old buildings and churches were being raised. Another shameful episode!

[dakine]

All my Detroit area polock-relatives were born and raised in River Rouge, not exactly a garden spot, but it was nice at one time....

[Modernman]

This is why Pacific Legal Foundation and the ACLU of Michigan are urging Michigan's high court to reconsider Poletown.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Jacquerie]

The ACLU is fighting eminent domain abuse? I'm skeptical. Any links?

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

This story is only half told.

The Poletown demolition was nothing but an act of ethnic cleansing, aimed at ... er, Poles. Authorized by Detroit's answer to Slobodan Milosevic, Coleman Young, who is now no longer worried about excessive snow removal problems in his domain.

The rest I'll leave as an exercise for the student.

[untenured]

I use this case in one of my classes, and that is an interesting charge. Can you recommend any useful reading or provide any more details?

[Revolting cat!]

The Wall Street Journal covered it extensively and, as I recall, didn't necessarily take the GM's side. It was dirty politics from beginning to end.

[henderson field]

Does this mean we can confiscate Sen. Carl Levin's house because the land will generate more in taxes as a chemical plant making styrene monomer and employing 25 people?

[Cicero]

It was ethnic cleansing. Beginning during the Second World War, the federal government began experimenting with "urban renewal," which continued in the following decades. This was used, in large part, to clean out the Catholic ethnic ghettos in the inner cities: Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and hundreds of others. It appears to have been a successful effort to break up a socially conservative voting block, so the liberals could move ahead with the sexual revolution and similar initiatives.

E. Michael Jones has written convincingly about this process in "Culture Wars."

[Alouette]

The 150-year-old cemetery where my great-great-grandfather is buried could not be plowed up. GM built a 10-foot-high brick wall around it.

[dfwgator]

I remember, was the stone dead silence from the usual leftist conservationists, ecologists, preservationists, while 100 year old buildings and churches were being raised. Another shameful episode!

They can all, as we say in the old country, "idz do piekla."

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

See Detroit News/Free Press archives of the times (early 1980s). Apparently Mayor Young shrugged off worries about displacing the Poletown residents by saying, "They didn't vote for me, did they?"

[Guvmint_Cheese]

If there is a Hell, Coleman Young hopefully is cleaning its toilets. That sunovab!tch did more to destroy Detroit than the UAW, the decline of the Big 3 (partially due the UAW) and the '67 Riots did combined!

[Clemenza]

Upward mobility was a bigger factor than "urban renewal." In Newark and Jersey City (my dad and mom's hometowns, respectively), urban renewal projects targeted black areas more than white areas. Even where there was no urban renewal or black entrance into white Catholic areas (such as the Italian enclaves in SW Brooklyn, where I live) the younger generation moved away to better housing and a higher standard of living through white collar work. There are more Italian-American investment bankers than construction workers my friend.

Besides, the upwardly mobile younger generations are typically more socially liberal than their parochial parents, who STILL voted Dem Socialist despite their "social conservatism." Pretty much everyone of my parents siblings are pro-abortion and tolerant toward interracial dating, for example.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Maybe. But white Detroit MADE Coleman Young. Remember he was jailed in the 50s for agitating (as a communist) for black voting rights. Like Dr. Frankensteen's creation, he came back to haunt. With lugnuts in his neck.

[Guvmint_Cheese]

White Detroit did have a role in shaping the man. However, in terms of him coming back to haunt, he did more to hurt the black population of Detroit than the white population. He did his part in driving out the tax base, be it residential or business. His antagonism towards the suburbs put a nice bow on Detroit's fate.

One can admire the man as a civil rights activist. But as mayor, he was a criminal.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

I never said I admired him. I only say he was a creature of his time and place.

To do him credit, we don't know that he killed anybody. Other than that, he was Michigan's answer to a central African Big-Man type keptocrat, and he turned his city into a wasteland that still hates itself.