Valuing property: Eminent domain for urban redevelopment, Philadelphia, 1992--2007

Growth-oriented government policy can conflict with ideals about individual property security. In this project, flexibility in the concept of private property helps political communities confront this tension and judge government power. A comprehensive study of Philadelphia's recent use of eminent domain for economic growth draws on observations, archives, and interviews. A quantitative overview of citywide practice combines originally collected data on eminent domain with City of Philadelphia and U.S. Census data on properties and neighborhoods, showing that eminent domain has been largely uncontroversial though fairly common (approximately 7,000 properties and 400 development projects pursued from 1992 to 2007). I argue that government generally receives support when its policy goals correspond with the perception of the neighborhood's real estate market health. Government investment receives support in neighborhoods where real estate markets are healthy and provide reliable returns. Where real estate markets are devastated, government substitution for (rather than investment in) those markets, through tangible goods like affordable housing, earns praise. Conflicts over government policy arise in a third kind of neighborhood, where the real estate market is what I call ailing, lingering between growth and decline. Case studies of two large, contested development projects reveal how government investment is both desired and precarious when that market is ailing. Unpredictability in the real estate market and government policy implementation process makes the effects of government plans uncertain. Hope for positive results draws support for government; skepticism invites resistance. If forecasts become dreary, and conflict erupts, citizens attempt to drive government out by claiming property security as a right to possession. During the much more common times when conflict is not evident, people expect government to cultivate investment, not possession. Investment, often through less contentious programs like tax incentives and credit supports, is the unstated but often-present goal of government policy related to property in neighborhoods with healthy, ailing, and devastated real estate markets. It is only when attempts to encourage investment threaten to destroy existing value that property security as possession is leveraged to force government to change course. This project addresses Kelo v. City of New London (2005).