Here is an issue than can affect you all, no matter your politics. On 60 Minutes last Sunday, the last segment dealt with a man and his wife in a small city in Ohio. They live in their "dream" house, an ordinary pleasant house that overlooks a beautiful park. They've lived there for 38 years, and the mortgage is paid off.
City council is expropriating their house, and those of their neighbours. For what? A highway? An airport? Another public facility?
No. For the "public good," the city is expropriating this and adjacent houses to sell the land to a private developer, who will build condos, thus increasing the tax base. The expanded tax base evidently represents "public good." The condo developer wants the park view.
If your home isn't yours, doesn't that counter one of the basic freedoms of the American Constitution? (I'm on shaky ground, there.)
Because I didn't see the 60 Minutes segment, and only heard about it, I did a google, and came up with the following information. The information is absolutely astounding. Websites are listed below.
"Most people would be shocked to discover that governments across the nation are taking individual's homes, only to transfer that property to a favored business or neighbor. Or that businesses are often being condemned, just so that another business can take the property and make a larger profit. Yet in the last few years, that's exactly what's been going on. Local governments in particular have taken private homes and businesses to replace them with other privately owned businesses, malls, industrial developments, and upscale housing."