STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

honey · Gucci

they're coming for your home!

dc · Dooney & Bourke

It's so awful. I heard a piece a month or two ago on NPR about the plaintiffs in the case, and I am so sad for them. Their house had been in their family for years... What does it really mean to own a piece of property?

And you're right, honey, our rights get chipped away at every day. It's case by case, but I fear that 10 years from now we'll wake up and wonder what happened to our constitution and our country.

If the court thinks it is ruling for the "greater good" of our cities and our people, they're fooling themselves. When individuals lose their rights, we all lose.

blink · Coach

This is happening to Arlington, Texas residents for the building of the new Cowboys stadium. Terrible.

scarlett · Marc Jacobs

this is terrible. the last thing we need are more shopping malls. we need more housing, not to mention more affordable housing.

halleybird · Hermes

It's terrible, and I am sure Phoenix will put it to good use. What's sad is that usually with eminent domain, they give you the price you paid for the house or the price it's appraised at, which is usually much below market value.

I did a story once on a guy whose house was seized so they could build a highway. He'd picked out the land himself and built his dream house over a period of 25 years. One day, he found out that it was all going to be taken away. It was the saddest thing -- he said no matter how much they gave him, he could not replace that house.

nunzi182 · Kate Spade

I am abolutely outraged by not only this, but by all of the laws like this that take away our rights as individuals. I sometimes wonder if we'd have all been better off living in the roaring 20s when times were much simpler and things were carefree. Granted, people were stuffy back then, but at least there was some kind of decency in the world.

I'm only in my early 20s and it scares me to death what the future holds because the government is getting more selfish in thinking that everything belongs to them. The laws are fine for everyone else to abide by until one of them gets in the government's way and they need to amend it. It's horrifying.

kenzie · Chanel

I heard this, too, and I am absolutely disgusted by this. Owning land and property is part of the foundation that makes up this country!! I'm outraged!

-- Edited by NylaBelle at 11:01, 2005-06-30

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

halleybird wrote:

I did a story once on a guy whose house was seized so they could build a highway. He'd picked out the land himself and built his dream house over a period of 25 years. One day, he found out that it was all going to be taken away. It was the saddest thing -- he said no matter how much they gave him, he could not replace that house.

oh my gosh, like noah in the notebook!

as for the decision, i could go on forever about it. on the one hand yes, it's awful for the person whose home it is. but from a utilitarian's pov, what if the seizure results in lots of jobs and prosperity for other citizens? and isn't the idea of property just so fascinating when you really think about it? i did a thesis on differing philosophies on property in law school and there's this article called "property and personhood" by margaret "peggy" radin that was just so amazing, it said a lot but basically the theory was kind of a "i have therefore i am" philosophy (compare to descartes' "i think therefore i am"), so she'd probably definitely be against this decision. and think about the "old days," when land was not a scarce commodity so theories like john locke's labor theory worked. briefly, locke believed that if you worked on a piece of land (like planted crops or whatever), you were putting your labor into it and that's how you owned it. but he thought that there'd be a natural limit on how much land a person could own because they couldn't physically work an infinite amount of land. but then things get complicated when you bring money into the picture, and inheritances. what does it really mean anyway, you know? what if peggy radin's right? what if our whole theory of being a person is inextricably entwined with what we own, if anything? in that case, this decision ma rob us as a society from our individual "personhood." it really makes you look at things in a whole new light--like homelessness, does our society view the homeless as less of a person? or what about slavery, what would it feel like, as a human being, to be owned? anyway, so sorry for the rambling tangent, my point (to the extent i have one!) is just that this decision while intuitively appalling isn't necessarily as appalling when you question anyone's right to own anything but then again if you think about it like peggy radin and your self development and "personhood" are connected to what you have then it makes sense where that intuitive shock and outrage comes from. i so want to talk to my my property professor (who is now a very dear friend but will always be someone i look up to) about all this. she was was peggy radin's research asst. and i was her research asst. so it's really like this circle of women who are fascinated by property and all that it means. and think about it, it really ties into shopping in our society as well--like we all live in an "i shop therefore i am" society you know? of which we're all enthusiastic members!

oh gosh you guys, i did go on forever--sorry for the nerdy rambling!

-- Edited by esquiress at 20:09, 2005-07-01

honey · Gucci

esquiress wrote:

halleybird wrote: I did a story once on a guy whose house was seized so they could build a highway. He'd picked out the land himself and built his dream house over a period of 25 years. One day, he found out that it was all going to be taken away. It was the saddest thing -- he said no matter how much they gave him, he could not replace that house. oh my gosh, like noah in the notebook! as for the decision, i could go on forever about it. on the one hand yes, it's awful for the person whose home it is. but from a utilitarian's pov, what if the seizure results in lots of jobs and prosperity for other citizens? and isn't the idea of property just so fascinating when you really think about it? i did a thesis on differing philosophies on property in law school and there's this article called "property and personhood" by margaret "peggy" radin that was just so amazing, it said a lot but basically the theory was kind of a "i have therefore i am" philosophy (compare to descartes' "i think therefore i am"), so she'd probably definitely be against this decision. and think about the "old days," when land was not a scarce commodity so theories like john locke's labor theory worked. briefly, locke believed that if you worked on a piece of land (like planted crops or whatever), you were putting your labor into it and that's how you owned it. but he thought that there'd be a natural limit on how much land a person could own because they couldn't physically work an infinite amount of land. but then things get complicated when you bring money into the picture, and inheritances. what does it really mean anyway, you know? what if peggy radin's right? what if our whole theory of being a person is inextricably entwined with what we own, if anything? in that case, this decision ma rob us as a society from our individual "personhood." it really makes you look at things in a whole new light--like homelessness, does our society view the homeless as less of a person? or what about slavery, what would it feel like, as a human being, to be owned? anyway, so sorry for the rambling tangent, my point (to the extent i have one!) is just that this decision while intuitively appalling isn't necessarily as appalling when you question anyone's right to own anything but then again if you think about it like peggy radin and your self development and "personhood" are connected to what you have then it makes sense where that intuitive shock and outrage comes from. i so want to talk to my my property professor (who is now a very dear friend but will always be someone i look up to) about all this. she was was peggy radin's research asst. and i was her research asst. so it's really like this circle of women who are fascinated by property and all that it means. and think about it, it really ties into shopping in our society as well--like we all live in an "i shop therefore i am" society you know? of which we're all enthusiastic members! oh gosh you guys, i did go on forever--sorry for the nerdy rambling!-- Edited by esquiress at 20:09, 2005-07-01

i'm a nerd too! interesting argument. i do think what you "own" helps define you as a person, it's not all of who you are but a portion of it. of course you always have the ability not to own, but i think the key is how you define ownership. i.e. in the case of slavery you can't own another person b/c that would contradict there personhood.

to transfer this idea to the real world. the issue i have is how the court chose to broaden the idea of eminent domain and transfer that right to other private citizens. it's one thing to say the government can seize your home to build a road or a stadium, since by default it transfers ownership to the citizens as a whole (anyone can use a road or a stadium, and even though it sucks for the individual, the idea of a "greater good" exists). however when you say the gov. can seize your home and transfer it to another private citizen to build a shopping mall, it's no longer for the greater good, b/c only one person or group of people really benefit from that new development.

halleybird · Hermes

esquiress: what an interesting argument! I never really considered that, but I think that it's quite true. Especially in this country, which has such a long history of equating property with identity and even citizenship.

Honey has an excellent point, though...there is a big difference between a public building and a mall.

blubirde · Chanel

My hope is that the next case to go before the court will be something about the economic compensation for the owners of the property that are to be displaced. Hopefully the court will make the economic compensation so incredibly high that it will very rarely be worth it for a city to try to buy out a person's home/land/property. But that's just my hope.

Have y'all seen this yet? http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

This group wants to build a hotel on the land where Justice Souter's home is. Here's a paragraph from the article that pretty much sums it up:

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

I dig the "Atlast Shrugged" bit. Very clever. I wonder what will happen?

-- Edited by blubirde at 12:04, 2005-07-05

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

esquiress your post was so interesting. It's true, it's a very complicated and rather bizarre idea when you think about it. Esp. when you contrast it to a couple hundred years ago when American settlers were pushing westward through the continent, staking out homesteads from the "virgin" land and pushing the native americans into tiny corners. And the native americans were completely appalled, I believe, by the thought of anyone buying, selling, or "owning" a piece of land.

And yet you can't get away from it. People have a very basic and deep instinct to mark their territory as their own. You see it in circumstances as mundane as at an office or a classroom or any space that people pass through for more than a brief instant. In classrooms, cafeterias, you always had "your" space, and it felt like an invasion if someone else was there. The first thing people do upon moving into offices, dorm rooms, whatever, is arrange it, put some things out that make it their own. It's so instinctive.