Throughout history, eminent domain, or the power of the government to take land from

private landowners and use it for public use, has been used to establish parks, build community
centers, and otherwise rebuild communities that the government views as “broken.” At first
glance, the idea behind eminent domain sounds appealing, especially when you consider that the
Constitution of the United States requires “[fair] compensation,” for the owners of the land that
is being taken. In reality though, eminent domain is neither helpful nor productive. In fact,
eminent domain as it is used today and as it has been used throughout history targets
communities of color, poor people, and people without the resources to defend themselves, it
allows the government to advance its often racist agenda, and it plays into a harmful cycle of
allowing big business to grow and expand, even at the expense of the people who originally lived
in the communities into which they are expanding.
Although many people argue that the practices of eminent domain allow for the
improvement of a community, as is argued in Source D, the people making these arguments are
often coming from a place of privilege and ignorance, and it is infrequent that they understand
the impact of these “complete makeover[s]” on their less privileged counterparts. Source C states
that “since the 1940s...development takings have forcibly displaced several million people in the
United States, most of them poor and racial minorities,” and then goes on to support the idea that
eminent domain practices are often enforced in a manner that significantly harms the people in a
community by explaining that “most of the people displaced were left even worse off than they
were before.” It could be said that gentrification and racist land policies are a thing of the past,
but that argument ignores examples of eminent domain playing out in harmful ways can be seen
in many places across United States today- including at the US-Mexico border, where the
government has threatened to take land to build a border wall, and in situations as described in
Source F, where a man, Pepe Stebelton, was offered less than $10,000 for a strip of his land, that
ended up being worth $558,625. The modern day problems at the southern border of the United
States, stories like that of Stebelton, and other examples that can be seen in places such as “the
bankrupt city of Detroit” show that “use of eminent domain...damages the social fabric of poor
communities...and undermines social ties,” and further supports the idea that eminent domain is
harmful, and should not be used, even when the perception is that it will improve the lives of the
people in the community.
In addition to targeting racial minorities and people who belong to lower socioeconomic
classes, eminent domain encourages the government to bow down to big businesses, which
amplifies the cycle of allowing these businesses to continue their often harmful practices, and
further harms the community that the government serves. The story is depicted by the 3 Little
Pigs in Source E, shows how the government uses eminent domain to take advantage of residents
and assist big businesses in growing, and even details how many of these residents have fought
through seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve what they have. Source B backs this up by
saying that “eminent domain, state and local subsidies, and federal-corporate partnerships have
fail[ed] to deliver the...community benefits and jobs they promise- but succeed[ed] in delivering
profits to the companies that lobby for them.” Many of the companies that end up using the land
the government takes are companies who pay their workers less than a livable wage, write
campaign checks for politicians, and are superpowers in almost every aspect of the world, both
political and social, and end up reaping all the benefits from eminent domain, benefits that were
intended for the community.
Despite the idea being eminent domain that says government will pay a fair amount of
money to take land from citizens and use it to better the community, this is often not how it plays
out. In reality, citizens are often under paid for the taken land, targeted because of their race or,
and left to rebuild their lives by themselves. Time and time again, eminent domain has proven to
be a harmful method of improving communities, and should not be used, even to build spaces
that the government views will make the area better for the people who live there.