Rediscovering Property Rights
in the Rubble of
Poletown
By Jacob Sullum
Just before dawn on
July 14, 1981, Detroit police hooked a tow truck to the basement door
of the Immaculate Conception Church on Trombly Street, and tore it off
its hinges. They stormed in, and arrested a dozen parishioners who were
making a desperate, doomed attempt to save part of their neighborhood
from an assault by an unbeatable alliance of big government, big
business, and big labor.
This was the last stand in the battle over Poletown, a
lower-middle-class, racially integrated neighborhood of Detroit that
was razed at the behest of General Motors, more than two decades
ago. To make room for a GM assembly plant, the city cleared 465
acres, incidentally destroying some 1,400 homes, about 140 businesses,
and several churches.
In a shameful capitulation, the Michigan Supreme Court
approved Poletown's demolition as a legitimate exercise of the
city's eminent domain powers. It accepted the argument that the jobs
and tax revenue the GM plant was expected to bring rendered it a
"public use," as required by the Michigan Constitution (as well as
other state constitutions, and the U.S. Constitution).
Last month, the court finally acknowledged that its ruling in
Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit was a mistake
that opened the door to the potentially unlimited expropriation of
private property in the name of the greater good. While considering an
attempt by Wayne County to seize land for a 1,300-acre "business and
technology park," the court's seven judges unanimously overruled the Poletown decision.
"Poletown's 'economic benefit' rationale would validate practically
any exercise of the power of eminent domain on behalf of a private
entity," the court noted. "If one's ownership of private property is
forever subject to the government's determination that another private
party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real
property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large
discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like."
Then-Justice James L. Ryan, who dissented from the Poletown
decision, said much the same thing in 1981, warning that the ruling
"seriously jeopardized the security of all private property
ownership." A lot of damage has been done since then, both in Michigan,
and in other states, where courts have copied Poletown's reasoning.
The Reverend Joseph Karasiewicz, pastor of Poletown's Immaculate
Conception Church, was prescient when he explained to The
Washington Post why he was resisting GM's government-backed
invasion. "This is an evil law, and we have to fight it," he said of
the statute that authorized condemnation of the neighborhood. "You
can't establish some type of crooked law, and then say you did it
legally. This has national implications and national scope. It sets a
bad precedent."
In the wake of Poletown, courts across the country have endorsed forced transfers of
land from its rightful owners to people with more political clout -
from homeowners to condominium developers, from small businesses to
large businesses, from churches to retailers. Last fall, the Nevada
Supreme Court cited Poletown in upholding
the condemnation of land to be used for casino parking in Las Vegas.
"Poletown was the first major case allowing condemnations of areas
in the name of jobs and taxes," explains
Institute for Justice attorney Dana Berliner, who co-authored a brief
urging repudiation of the decision. "It is cited in every property
textbook in the country."
An aspect of the decision that was intended as a safeguard - a
requirement that a project's economic benefit be "clear and
significant" - has had a perverse impact, encouraging larger seizures
of land and hyperbolic predictions about jobs and revenue. Even in
Poletown, employment at the heavily subsidized GM plant fell far
short of the 6,000 jobs the company promised.
In the case that prompted the Michigan Supreme Court to reconsider
Poletown, Wayne County predicted "thousands of jobs," "tens of
millions of dollars in tax revenue," a broader tax base, and
"accelerated economic growth." But if the project failed to deliver
those results, no one would be accountable.
Such projections are, in any case, beside the point. "It's the
principle of the thing," Poletown resident Kris Biernacki told The
Washington Post in 1981. "I think the whole thing stinks. I just
don't believe it happened. It's breathtaking. We didn't have a voice
in it - not a voice. We didn't want to move. We were literally forced
to move out. We were just told to go."
|
