Underestimating long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy

[Tim May]

On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 02:25  AM, Bill Stewart wrote:

> At 04:56 PM 05/09/2003 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
>> Perhaps there is a reason that the 5th amendment provided for eminent
>> domain.  And, given the government camel nose under the tent, how far 
>> do
>
> Eminent domain gets used for all kinds of appalling things -
> it's not just governments building roads or military bases,
> or even governments taking land for government-run activities.
>
> It's also used for shopping malls and such where the government thinks
> it can get higher property tax revenues or "improve" the city or
> increase campaign contributions from real estate developers,
> and in the past it was used for "urban renewal", i.e. tearing down
> housing inhabited primarily by black people.

Yes, many such uses by private actors, via bought and paid for public 
actors.

There have been several publicized cases where a longstanding store or 
restaurant was seized by eminent domain, razed, and then the land has 
yet to be built upon. Small town residents in one area saw an important 
store (hardware, I think) seized and razed and now, years later, just 
an empty lot with no sales or property tax coming in, no employees, and 
no hardware store. (I think the plan had been for some large box store, 
but the chain decided the town only could support a smaller-sized 
store, which was now gone.)

I met some Silicon Valley friends for lunch a few days ago. We went to 
a small place near a set of "out of place skyscrapers" which had been 
heavily subsidized by a local government. The restaurant was virtually 
empty, and the owner/chef came out to our table (he knew one of our 
party from years back) to launch into his tale of woe.

For those who know the area, we ate in an old shopping complex called 
"Town and Country Village," in Sunnyvale, near Mathilda Avenue and 
Central Expressway. The old T & C Village had fallen onto hard times 
over the past 20 years, replaced by newer centers. So Sunnyvale decided 
to subsidize a builder to erect some 6-story office buildings. Three or 
four massive towers--massive compared to what's all around for a mile 
or two--got built. And now they are largely empty.

Here's the "dot com explosion" optimistic report on this project:

<http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2000/05/08/story5.html>

Anyway, this restaurant owner was telling us how the town gave him 
various inducements to open a restaurant to serve the lunch crowd from 
these several skyscrapers. (Apparently when government gets into the 
building business it also must worry about how to feed the workers. 
True in ancient Egypt, true today.)

Since the buildings sit nearly empty, many of the new restaurants and 
delis and lunch places are failing.

Which is all evolution in action, except that government should not be 
in the construction and business development business. (I would go 
further and say that nothing in the U.S. Constitution, which states and 
localities are bound by, justifies taking money from citizens to give 
to businesses. No matter "how smart an investment" it looks to be. 
Ditto for governments running gambling operations, but I digress.)


According to news reports on this area, Sunnyvale is still losing money 
on a major indoor mall it built 23-4 years ago ("Sunnyvale Town 
Center," which I used to live a mile or so away from when it was being 
built in the late 70s.

IMO, there's something very, very wrong about any level of government 
building shopping malls.

--Tim May
"The great object is that every man be armed and everyone who is able 
may have a gun." --Patrick Henry
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they 
be properly armed." --Alexander Hamilton