[altroots] Fwd: [ARTNEWS] OT:: NOLA: catastrophe is good for business (developers anyway)

Eminent Domain &
The New Orleans Land Grab
A Prediction
By Noose Papier
Portland Indymedia.org`
9-17-5

The disaster in New Orleans has created an opportunity for land 
speculators and developers alike, much in the way corporations see the 
third world. Only in our case has the Supreme Court already set up the 
legal framework for doing so. With two Bush appointees in the works, a 
land grab is only a matter of time.

Take for example, the case in Lakewood Ohio, where occupants of 
perfectly inhabitable housing were forced to leave their homes through 
a court order, so that the government could turn the property over to 
private developers, under the guise of "the public good". An article, 
published on a CBS website over a year ago states, "Cities across the 
country have been using eminent domain to force people off their land, 
so private developers can build more expensive homes and offices that 
will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they're replacing." 
(Eminent Domain: Being Abused?, 60 Minutes)

In Lakewood, the houses were not even "blighted". In the case of New 
Orleans, where many homeowners will be declaring bankruptcy, and 
wanting to liquidate property, speculators will be waiting around to 
snatch up land deals. New Orleans is ripe for "redevelopment". And just 
like Baghdad, Halliburton gets the contract for "reconstruction", 
though many from the South will argue that many places never recovered 
from the blight caused by the Civil War.

It is clear the eminent domain is being used as a means of transferring 
wealth to developers; a wealth redistribution scheme for the rich. The 
Supreme Court, in their recent decision concerning a case in New 
London, Connecticut, has endorsed this. An AP report quipped, "Cities 
may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other 
private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday [June 23rd, 
2005], giving local governments broad power to seize private property 
to generate tax revenue." What this will mean for the poor is an 
eventual spike in rents, ensuring that many poor folks will never 
return to their urban home.

The privitization schemes have yet to materialize in full, but this, 
too, is a matter of time.

These land redistribution schemes have been played out over and over in 
other places, through international corporation and lending 
institutions, with the legal support of local governments. In many case 
in this hemisphere, with few options available, people took matters 
into their own hands. Similar conditions present themselves in New 
Orleans--people desperate for basic needs, governments that are 
complicit in land grabs, and US corporations always willing to make the 
"investment". It makes one wonder what the real reason for so much 
security and so little food in post hurricane Katrina was. Starving out 
and controlling a possible armed insurrection, in the wake of denial of 
food, water, and medical supplies, may be what proof lies in some 
classified memo yet to be released.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/325009.shtml

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