I recently read the book, Geography of Nowhere, by James Kunstler. In one chapter, he talked about the history of suburbia in Long Island. The first suburban developments were owned by extremely wealthy individuals and most of the land on Long Island was either farmland, or forest land owned by those wealthy people. And those wealthy individuals used their ownership priviledges to prevent the development of any massive highway systems.

But after New York installed Robert Moses as one of the transportation directors, Robert Moses seized a great deal of land by using eminent domain. The purpose of this was for him to build a highway and pressure the wealthy individuals on that island to sell their land to suburban developers. This is an unfortunate development because the people of New York cannot go to a real outdoor forest unless they have the money for transportation to a more distant area like Canada or Vermont.

I believe that this indeed was an abuse of the Eminent Domain clause in the Constitution. For starters, America already had an extensive railroad network for cargo and passengers. Second, there are things that the politicians could have done to improve the cities and make the cities more affordable.

So the question for debate is
Is the Interstate Highway an abuse of the Eminent Domain clause in the Constitution?

Robert Moses certainly abused powers during his long tenure. As to the Interstate Highway system, it certainly uprooted many homes, but it was at least for public use and did not directly abuse the system in the way that Kelo does.

Sometimes eggs must be broken for omelets, but it should be for public-not private-omelets!

OswaldTheOsprey

Is the Interstate Highway an abuse of the Eminent Domain clause in the Constitution? For starters, the Constitution doesn't have an Eminent Domain clause; it has a takings clause. The Takings Clause says The interstate highway system obviously falls within public use. Not only that but building interstate roads has been an essential function of the federal government. So long as the government provides people just compensation, it's clearly constitutional. Some people may see some problems that resulted from building interstate highways but I don't see any constitutional problems.