Eminent Domain is one of those things that tend to get me really riled up.  One of the most important rights declared in the Constitution is that you shall not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.  Included in that 5th Amendment guarantee is that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.  The process of Eminent Domain is where this private property is taken, for supposedly public uses.  However, over the years, the definition of "public use" has become distorted so much as to have no meaning whatsoever.

One of the most egregious abuses of this power is currently occurring in New York, by Columbia University.  Columbia University, a bastion of liberal ethics and ivory tower justice, would like to expand it's campus.  However, instead of buying that land from it's neighbors for market value, Columbia would rather the State of New York take the land, and then give it to Columbia through Eminent Domain.  While the owners would be compensated somewhat, the process of Eminent Domain itself lowers land value (since private owners are unwilling to buy land that will be taken anyway), and so just compensation never actually occurs through Eminent Domain.  The result?  Columbia University would get the new land for a bargain, whether the current owners want to sell to them or not.

Unfortunately for Columbia, in order for any of this to occur, the neighborhood has to first be declared "blighted".  Even more of a problem for Columbia University is that the neighborhood was actually in very good condition.  I say was because over time, Columbia has slowly been buying up some of the land that it could, so that it could keep the properties vacant, and in disrepair.  The sole reason for doing so, it would seem, is to artificially create the blight that it needs to get the rest of the land through Eminent Domain:

Nick Sprayregen stands on the corner of 130th and Broadway pointing out the disarray. What was once a neighborhood gas station is now abandoned, its yard closed off by a chain-link fence topped with a spiral of razor wire. Inside the fence, debris is casually strewn about. Outside, the sidewalk is littered with broken glass. A derelict shopping cart is propped against the building, which itself is marked with stray graffiti. An electrical box on the side of the building has been pried open. Some of the wiring has been ripped out; what remains is exposed to the elements. This rundown property is owned by Columbia University. In fact, the Ivy League school owns 70 percent of the surrounding area--known as Manhattanville--much of which is in similarly dilapidated condition.

It wasn't always this way. Manhattanville was never trendy, but it was once an active neighborhood full of light industry--auto shops, warehouses, and the like. But as Columbia began buying up the neighborhood, businesses left. Eighteen buildings in Manhattanville are now at least 50 percent vacant; Columbia owns 17 of them and they were nearly all fully occupied before Columbia acquired them. As a study put together by Sprayregen's lawyer explains, "Each became vacant only after, or immediately prior to Columbia's acquisition or assumption of control." And the university's actions seem designed to keep them vacant.

The building at 3251 Broadway, for example, was home to six auto repair businesses, an auto parts store, a woodwork restoration business, and a travel agency before Columbia acquired it. In 2005, Columbia refused to renew leases on the upper floors, citing a dangerous elevator. The university then erected sidewalk sheds in front of the building, hiding the ground-floor storefronts, claiming that there was a problem with the building's façade. But they have never initiated any repairs. The businesses emptied out of 3251 Broadway, and today the building stands vacant except for a small auto parts store on the ground floor. The unsightly sidewalk sheds still hulk over the front doors. Many of the buildings Columbia owns in Manhattanville have "For Rent" signs. Yet as Sprayregen's lawyer notes, "Calls to numbers listed on signs on Columbia-owned buildings advertising space for rent could never reach a live person and messages were never returned."

Quite the racket if you ask me.  First Columbia buys up some land and keeps it in poor condition, then uses it's poor building management as a reason to be given more land.  When did we decide that slum lords should be rewarded?  You can read more about this in a separate article in the Wall Street Journal as well.  Via Reason.