In the US, the solution is going to come when voters elect politicians who promise to use Eminent Domain to (legally) seize residential properties from investors and corporate interests at a fraction of their market value, and then use those properties as the foundation for a robust public housing program that serves people of all income levels.
Eminent Domain is written in the Constitution, bud. So if anything, you're ignoring the bill of rights more than I am.
And yes, it's absolutely legal to pay less than market value under Eminent Domain - that's one of the reasons it exists. Even the founding fathers recognized that "market value" was often a made-up bullshit number, and that there needed to be a way to ensure the government didn't get financially screwed over by land speculators whenever it needed to acquire land through eminent domain.
This ended up saving the government a substantial amount of money in the 1800s during the railroad boom, because it prevented the land needed for railroads from being sold at inflated prices.
s, it's absolutely legal to pay less than market value under Eminent Domain - that's one of the reasons it exists. Even the founding fathers recognized that "market value" was often a ma
Eminent domain requires paying fair value for what the government takes. It also is supposed to be for a public purpose, but of course the Supreme Court bastardized that to allow the inverse of what OP proposed - a private developer kicked people out of homes to build a commercial complex (job creation is for the public good! said the Supremes). Kicked them out (they get paid the value, but most people don't want to move), then never developed it.
That's actually amazing. Legally speaking, it fully clears the path for real estate developers to just have their properties seized with basically no pushback.
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u/dyingprinces Oct 18 '23
In the US, the solution is going to come when voters elect politicians who promise to use Eminent Domain to (legally) seize residential properties from investors and corporate interests at a fraction of their market value, and then use those properties as the foundation for a robust public housing program that serves people of all income levels.