Do the Chinese now have greater property rights than Americans? Home Amid Chinese Highway a Symbol of Resistance

There, the 'holdouts' stayed in their homes where a highway was built. Here, it's so long Oolong (or Kelo) as the case may be.

     This is the vacant lot where the home of Susette Kelo once stood,  

city of New London, CT. Pfizer shut down the plant and moved, leaving 

 weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters and broken lives. 

 In the 1998, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer built a plant next to Fort Trumbull and the City of New London, Connecticut determined that someone else could make better use of the land than the Fort Trumbull residents.  The City handed over its power of eminent domain—the ability to take private property for public use—to the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private body, to take the entire neighborhood for private development. As the Fort Trumbull neighbors found out, when private entities wield government’s awesome power of eminent domain and can justify taking property with the nebulous claim of “economic development,” all homeowners are in trouble.

 The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision, that the private developer had the right of 'taking' private property for the better public use: Meaning more taxes as an underlying motivation.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision against Kelo and her neighbors sparked a nation-wide backlash against eminent domain abuse, leading eight state supreme courts and 43 state legislatures to strengthen protections for property rights.  Moreover, Kelo educated the public about eminent domain abuse, and polls consistently show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to Kelo and support efforts to change the law to better protect home and small business owners.  Moreover, in the five years since the Kelo decision, citizen activists have defeated 44 projects that sought to abuse eminent domain for private development.  

Meanwhile, in New London, the Fort Trumbull project has been a dismal failure.  After spending close to 80 million in taxpayer money, there has been no new construction whatsoever and the neighborhood is now a barren field.  In 2009, Pfizer, the lynchpin of the disastrous economic development plan, announced that it was leaving New London for good, just as its tax breaks are set to expire.  

Go To - http://www.ij.org/kelo-v-new-london 


Home Amid Chinese Highway a Symbol of Resistance - ABC News

By DIDI TANG Associated Press BEIJING November 23, 2012 (AP)

"Nail House" in Wenling, Zhenjiang Province, China

In the middle of an eastern Chinese city's new main road, rising incongruously from a huge circle in the freshly laid pavement, is a five-story row house with ragged edges. This is the home of the duck farmer who said "no."

Luo Baogen and his wife are the lone holdouts from a neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the main thoroughfare heading to a newly built railway station on the outskirts of the city of Wenling in Zhejiang province.

Dramatic images of Luo's home have circulated widely online in China this week, becoming the latest symbol of resistance in the frequent standoffs between Chinese homeowners and local officials accused of offering too little compensation to vacate neighborhoods for major redevelopment projects.

There's even a name for the buildings that remain standing as their owners resist development. They are called "nail houses" because the homeowners refuse to be hammered down.

Nail house families occasionally have resorted to violence. Some homeowners have even set themselves on fire in protests.

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