The Forgotten Village; Or How Emininent Domain is Government Theft

 by Roland Hulme

When Thomas Jefferson was drafting the Declaration of Independence, he toyed with the phrase "life, liberty and property" as the three inalienable rights of man. Ultimately, Ben Franklin convinced him to go with "the pursuit of happiness." At what cost did that omission come?

Welcome to palatial Long Island - a 100 miles of some of the most desirable real estate in America.

Couldn't you see yourself living here?

The pictures you see below are from a village of waterfront cottages, on the highly sought-after south shore of Long Island. Hidden behind a chain link fence, these 60-something properties have been allowed to rot for decades; forgotten, ignored and crumbling.

And yet these roads are in better condition than most in New Jersey

But why? How could millions of dollars worth of real estate be allowed to go undeveloped? Why are none of these large, well-built cottages lived in any more?

Ask Uncle Sam.

Because this forgotten village is the result of 'eminent domain' - the government's right to forcibly 'purchase' property from American citizens; often for pennies on the dollar of their true value.

That is what happened in this case: Developers wanted to built a luxury condominium complex on the waterfront, and bought off enough politicians to get them to use 'eminent domain' to make the land available.

The timeless style of American houses makes it difficult to date these properties

Essentially, the government kicked homeowners off their land, paying them below the value of their property with taxpayers money. The plan was for the property company to buy the land off the government - again, at far less than it was worth - and rake in millions of undeserved profits (with sizable kickbacks, one can assume, for the compliant politicians.)

Except, like in so many cases, that never happened.

When property values crashed, the development company ducked out of their obligations - and the government was left with 360,000 square feet of real estate and nothing to do with it. So the government did what they do best. Nothing.

Decades later, this is the result.

Who knows what era of cars were kept in these garages

In this time of economic depression, many people are looking to the government to help them. Yet this is an example - one of countless - of how the men and women we elect to the vaulted seats of Washington are often only capable of helping themselves.

I'm not as allergic to government or bureaucracy in the same way a Republican or Tea Partier might be; but I come from a nation strangled by bureaucracy; so like the back end of a horse, I have a well-deserved concern about getting on the wrong side of it.

Because for all of the free market's faults - of which there are many, especially when we try to blend it with welfare statism - one thing seems clear. If market forces and free enterprise had been allowed to deal with the land now rotting behind chain-link fences, those 60+ abandoned houses would be the site of a thriving waterfront community today.