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Let me offer the following unobvious fact about this process as one who practiced law in Connecticut for 25 years. p. You own a piece of land, a house on a piece of land, a commercial property on a piece of land. The well-bribed schemers in local office decide that the community really needs more tax revenue than your use is providing. After their relatives and friends are hired by the developer (together with cash bribes from the developer) in exchange for favorable votes to hijack your property for the utterly non-governmental purpose of the next shopping center or office building or hotel or whatever, the government officials then offer you, the landowner, what you and they well know is just about 2/3 of the market value of your property.

Why on earth is that 2/3 value such a consistent abuse of the victimized homeowner? Simple answer, if you hire a lawyer, you pay 1/3 of any amount achieved by sale or settlement to the lawyer (who may NOT get you the full value and certainly won't get you more than full value).

The government takes your property right away, leaving payment amount to be determined by settlement or suit and you either accept 2/3 or wait three or four years of litigation to obtain, at best, the full value but have to pay 1/3 to the lawyer plus costs. You also lose the time value of the money. Imposing embarassment on those few officials capable of embarassment puts nothing in your pocket. Five judges of SCOTUS: Stevens, Souter, KENNEDY (who betrayed the babies), Ginsberg and Breyer have created a constitutional growth industry for gummint corrupters public and private. This was too much even for Sandy Baby. Next vacancy is Rehnquist who voted the right way so there will be no relief there.

Excellent summary!

It's been happening here in my little town in NJ. Local council sends a newsletter around, and a few years ago there was one paragraph that caught my attention: "A developer has agreed to put a shopping center at the corner of such-and-such. The property owner is being uncooperative, so we will be using public domain..." They just came right out and put it in writing.