Eminent domain for private development though is not.

Paradoxically, Washington, D.C. favors it for the latter and not the former.

Strangely (IMHO), there appears to be little questioning as to the unfair disadvantage to many railroads insofar that they are private property and hence have to pay an annual property tax.

Way cheaper than litigating eminent domain, and no moral taint.

Agreed, but that's a different fight.

This supports Mitch's idea that we need to learn to use eminent domain wisely, rather than using the blunt instrument of legal limits.

The general public loved Robert Moses' projects, thanks to a fawning press and a keen ear to the populist buzz words at the time. The man simply knew his way around, and had the power to get it all done. But there is no denying that Moses was helping to provide for America's explosive middle class. There was a genuine desire to get out of the city on the part of many families in New York. For millions of people, Moses was aquiring badly used land and making it available for use by the government for highways, or developers for suburbs. For middle class New Yorkers, eminent domain made their goals that possible. In hindsight, it all turned out to be a disaster that we are only beginning to recognize.

Simply put, it's extremely difficult for us to judge the "good" projects from the bad ones. Most people here are already biased one way or the other, myself included. Something that sounds like a great idea now can have tremendous long term consequences, as Moses's use of eminent domain shows.

It's a very slippery slope. Regardless of who is in charge.

Court decisions are a pretty blunt instrument for fighting misuse of eminent domain, since decisions that limit ED tend to limit good uses, too. It makes more sense to elect people who understand urban development, and use ED wisely, and sparingly.

For example in Asia eminent domain is used extensively to radically change land-use patterns in favor of denser urban layouts, but repackaging large numbers of land plots to increase their density in a fair manner. This has resulted in some of the largest cities on earth, from what was previously sprawling rural areas.

Also in Europe and Latin America we have lots of reverse-eminent domaine, where government roads are for example returned to group community private ownership "woonerfs" by a majority street vote, and gov't land returned to tribal groups in LA.

Even if the developer or business builds good urban form, the businesses likely to move in are chains or large businesses, so the capital doesn't stay in the city, only taxed income. I don't know anything about the situation in Colorado, but that sounds more like a specific opposition movement to light rail rather than a fight over justice.

Now, we are starting to go to far in the opposite direction. We will need eminent domain to build both a smart grid and transportation projects in the next few decades, and parts of the smart grid may be build by private developers. This is is legitimate use of public domain, which is obviously needed to obtain rights of way.

Giving the way that the pendulum is swinging now, I am not worried about Sotomayor's position on eminent domain.