Taking Liberty is a comprehensive look at the lower 48 states showing, region by region, how the Environmental Movement is rapidly abolishing Private Property in America.
From the Introduction: Only 6% of America's land mass is currently developed. Only 3% of America is classified as urban. Yet 77% of all Americans live in these urban areas. The rest is largely untouched by humans.
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by Wendell Cox (12/26/2009)

Without smart growth's land rationing policies, the severe escalation in home prices would never have reached such absurd levels. But the disaster in the highly regulated markets will be with us for years. The smart growth spike in housing prices turned what might have been a normal cyclical downturn into the most disastrous financial collapse since 1929. Now the taxpayers are being asked to bail out the mess that smart growth advocates, no doubt inadvertently, have created.

by Wall Street Journal opinion (12/25/2009)

Last week saw a major victory for property rights, as besieged homeowners in New Jersey claimed victory against politicians and developers trying to seize their land. This continues the nationwide grassroots effort to stop government abuse of eminent domain power since the Supreme Court's misguided 2005 Kelo ruling...

by Randal O'Toole, Cato Institute Senior Fellow (12/24/2009)

Because they can grow a tree, planners think they can plan a million-acre forest. Because they can build a house, planners think they can design an entire urban area. But there is a qualitative difference between these activities that is more than just a matter of scale...

Here’s an example of big government at its most arrogant: The California Coastal Commission is trying to armtwist a San Mateo County couple into dedicating their property to be a farm or a ranch. Dan and Denise Sterling of El Granada are the victims of this “forced farming” power play. They want to build a house for themselves and their four children. But the Coastal Commission won’t let them—unless they set aside most of their property as a public easement for farming or cattle grazing. The Sterlings aren’t farmers or ranchers, and their land has never been a farm or a ranch. So the Commission is basically trying to coerce them into surrendering most of their property, as the price of a simple permit to build a house. PLF attorneys are fighting back. We represent the Sterlings in a lawsuit against the Commission’s outrageous infringement of property rights. Watch this video to learn more about the story: youtube.com/watch?v=YpWlgZgp23E

by Wendell Cox (3/3/2009)

The housing crisis isn't over yet, as prices around the country continue to plummet. Despite the market's continuing collapse, most commentary and analysis has managed to overlook one of the key factors in the creation of the original bubble: land use regulation that artificially limited the housing supply. Even worse, taking Rahm Emmanuel's maxim to heart (let no crisis be wasted), officials at the city, state, and federal levels are coming up with regulatory and legislative measures to re-inflate this bubble. Prescriptive land use regulation sealed the fate of many housing markets, driving house prices to the stratosphere. Such markets were set up for house price losses of an intensity not seen even in the Great Depression. ... Starting the process of dismantling overly prescriptive land use regulation would put the nation on the road toward improved housing affordability and toward developing a sustainable, stable housing market that is out of reach of the extreme regulation that did so much to cause the current crisis...

by Bob Benze (5/1/2007)

In a nutshell, Environmental Justice is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applied to environmental protection by way of Executive Order 12898 signed by President Clinton on February 11, 1994.

Growing efforts to save privately owned farms, ranches and forests from industrial and residential development now preserve about as much open space each year as is lost to sprawl...

Fight for other people's property rights like you would fight for yours. If the government can take away your neighbor's property rights, you could be next.
The federal government owns more land in the United States than the ten largest countries in Europe. The feds continue to buy more land, make more laws. Citizens need to get involved with each other, their communities and with their government officials and hold them accountable...

by Edward J. Lopez, Edward P. Stringham, Tom Means (6/5/2008)

Housing affordability has become a major issue in recent years. To address the problem, many cities have adopted a policy known as below-market housing mandates or inclusionary zoning. As commonly practiced in California, below-market housing mandates require developers to sell 10–20 percent of new homes at prices affordable to low-income households. Many developers, however, argue that the program is in violation of the takings clause of the U.S. Constitution because it forces developers to use some of their property to advance a public goal. Nevertheless, in Home Builders Association of Northern California v. City of Napa (2001), the court ruled against the regulatory takings argument, saying that belowmarket housing mandates are legal because (1) they offer compensating benefits to developers and (2) they necessarily increase the supply of affordable housing. This study investigates these claims in the following way: Section 2 discusses the history of regulatory takings and discusses why below-market housing mandates may be considered a taking. Section 3 investigates how much below-market housing mandates cost developers. Section 4 investigates econometrically whether below-market housing mandates actually make housing more affordable. Our research indicates that the decision by the California Courts of Appeal is on shaky ground...

by Edward J. Lopez (6/5/2008)

Since June 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its infamous Kelo vs. New London ruling, which gave local governments the power to acquire private property for economic development use under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, 42 states have established eminent domain reform. While these new laws purport to serve property owners, not all of them do, including the bills passed by California in 2006.

by Andrew P. Napolitano (4/20/2007)

When teaching law students the significance of private property, we tell them that each owner of such property has something called a “bundle of rights.” The first of these rights is the right to use the property. The second is the right to alienate the property. The third and greatest is the right to exclude people from the property. With this in mind, let me pose a question: Can the government force a property owner to sell his property?

by WILLIAM R. MAURER (1/11/2007)

The city of Burien, Wash., recently decided that a piece of property owned by the seven Strobel sisters that had long housed a popular diner-style restaurant was not upscale enough for the city's ambitious "Town Square" development, which will feature condos, shops, restaurants and offices. Rather than condemn the property for a private developer and risk a lawsuit, Burien came up with a plan--it would put a road through the property, and the city manager told his staff to "make damn sure" it did...

Sound Transit insisted all the way to the state Supreme Court that posting an agenda four clicks deep into a government Web page is adequate notice of an eminent domain action. No phone call. No letter. No posting on the property. The law requires notice, but unnoticeable notice such as a Web posting was legally adequate, Sound Transit’s lawyers insisted. And the court bought it...

In a signal embarrassment for the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a Cincinnati suburb can't use eminent domain to take private property for a $125 million multiuse redevelopment. It was the first challenge of a city's right of eminent domain to be decided by a state high court since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that economic benefit constitutes "public use" under the Constitution.

The state will use eminent domain to seize more than 17 acres of a working farm in Washington Township to offset wetlands lost because of road projects miles away in Sussex County. The township's mayor and county officials have questioned the plan to turn farmland into wet lands and have written letters to the state raising concerns in recent weeks. Washington Township Mayor Tracy Tobin said taking part of a working farm to offset road work many miles away is "strange." He said the area's strong farming heritage should be protected. "The state has poured millions of dollars into farmland preservation," Tobin said. "Why in the Lord's name would they turn around and attack a working farm?"

In an 8-0 decision, the nations highest court ruled that beach renourishment along the Florida Panhandle does not amount to a taking of private property. When the state deems a stretch of beach "critically eroded" it brings in new sand to replenish the beach in an effort to protect against storm damage. The problem, as several waterfront property owners saw it, is that the newly created beach is public property. So, according to landowners, what was once private waterfront property now stops at the beach and the waterfront is public...

by Wall Street Journal opinion (12/2/2009)

Floridians who think life's a beach should be watching the Supreme Court closely today when the Justices hear oral arguments about whether the state may confiscate private waterfront land for a dubious public purpose.

by Wall Street Journal opinion (11/30/2009)

Property Owners Get Dunked On. New York judges served up what basketball fans call a facial on Tuesday, when an appellate court ruled that the state may seize homes and small businesses in Brooklyn for the benefit of a private developer and the New Jersey Nets. The decision represents a backward step for the effort to protect property rights at the state level since the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. New London.

Right now there are those government planners that are content to restrict others from having two homes on their property. Rest assured, this contentment will never last. The next step will be what is depicted in this article. There will be those that will not be content until they control your property to the extent you can not built ANY home on it. All it takes is for someone to say, "It's so pretty a home would only mar the beauty," and for someone in Community Development to agree and ban the home. I recommend you read the attached article, then ask youself, "Where do we draw the line?" The takings have got to stop. (MD)

This lesson is being taught by banning Legos. A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle. According to an article in the winter 2006-07 issue of "Rethinking Schools" magazine, the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil...

by M. Reed Hopper (6/23/2006)

Our constitutional way of life got a boost this week from the U.S. Supreme Court when the high court rejected the idea that federal officials have unlimited control over every pond, puddle and ditch in our country.

Governments have long claimed the right to take private property to build roads, dams, parks and other public facilities. But since the urban renewal efforts of the mid-20th century, cities have claimed the right to take private property in poor condition for redevelopment by other owners. The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., affirmed that right, ruling economic growth can qualify as "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. One year after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in the Kelo case, the government's power of eminent domain is facing its first major legal challenge — in a much-changed political environment...

On a list of states with the worst property-rights protections, Oregon has long held a top position. So hearty congratulations to that state's landowners, who this week won a long struggle for more control over their acreage, and in the process may become a model for land-use reform across the country. Their victory came in a unanimous Oregon Supreme Court decision upholding a 2004 ballot measure designed to curb "regulatory takings."