Should eminent domain be allowed for private use? (private use includes economic development)

5th Amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation" Americans used to live in their homes with the knowledge that the government was there to protect their lives and property from anyone who threatened them. If a widow didn't want to sell his/her home to a developer, he/she didn't have to. That was the end of the story. The developer then had 3 options, one of them illegal. The developer could build around him/her. The developer could find somewhere else. Or the developer could send in thugs to force the widow to sell. If the developer chose the 3rd option, the government would be there to protect the widow from the thugs. With eminent domain for private use, the government IS the thugs. By claiming the new owner can produce more tax revenue, the government can take property from one person and give it to another for the other's private gain. That's wrong. Some may say, "it's not stealing. The owner receives just compensation." Let's see if that passes the smell test. If I present you a check for your home and make you move, would you say that because I paid you "just compensation," theft has not occurred? Or some may say that public use is satisfied when a public purpose is the reason for the taking. Let's look at the other places the constitution uses the word "use": Article 1, Section 10, Clause 2: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. And Article 1, Section 8, clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years So let me ask you, don't they mean that the Treasury will control and employ the revenue, and "employed to raise and support armies," respectively? Of course. So how can one turn around and say "use" means something entirely different elsewhere in the Constitution? They could have said "general welfare" or something along those lines if they meant "public use" to be broad. The words "public use" were meant to be a greater restriction on the taking of property. The public needs to employ the property, not just realize some secondary benefit, in order for "public use" to be satisfied. What if the current use of the property is the source of social harm? Good question. Nuisance law has been the traditional way of dealing with that, and that's required no compensation whatsoever. As ruled in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887): As already stated, the present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit. Such legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the state that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests. Nor can legislation of that character come within the fourteenth amendment, in any case, unless it is apparent that its real object is not to protect the community, or to promote the general well-being, but, under the guise of police regulation, to deprive the owner of his liberty and property, without due process of law. The power which the states have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property, as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not, and, consistently with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be, burdened with the condition that the state must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community. The exercise of the police power by the destruction of property which is itself a public nuisance, or the prohibition of its use in a particular way, whereby its value becomes depreciated, is very different from taking property for public use, or from depriving a person of his property without due process of law. In the one case, a nuisance only is abated; in the other, unoffending property is taken away from an innocent owner. It is true, when the defendants in these cases purchased or erected their breweries, the laws of the state did not forbid the manufacture of intoxicating liquors. But the state did not thereby give any assurance, or come under an obligation, that its legislation upon that subject would remain unchanged. The Public Use Clause was meant to be more restrictive than "public purpose." Our founders understood that the taking of an innocent person's property should not be a regular means of exercising their enumerated powers. The question of whether the government can regulate property with its police power is different from whether the government can take property with eminent domain. State nuisance law, not eminent domain is the appropriate way to deal with social harm