Once again, a private developer is attempting to use, with the help of the city, the infamous eminent-domain rule to kick out private property owners from their houses in order to build a new basketball arena. The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece on the subject this morning:

In Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation, residents and business owners are challenging the state’s use of eminent domain to condemn private property in a Brooklyn neighborhood for the benefit of a private developer. Spawned by developer Forest City Ratner, the “Atlantic Yards” project would build a new venue for the New Jersey Nets, along with office towers and apartment buildings.

This is not the first time it has happened in New York City:

Private beneficiaries have included such big retailers as Costco, Ikea and Stop and Shop, as well as The New York Times and New York Stock Exchange. In Buffalo, old homes were threatened with demolition to make way for new homes. In Syracuse, small businesses saw their properties put on the block to clear a path for new office buildings. Notice a pattern here? In eminent domain cases, the political class typically uses its power to help the strongest private interests against the weakest.

Read more here. Also, Reason’s Damon Root discusses the case here and Reason’s editor-in-chief Matt Welch had a nice piece a few years back explaining why the New York Times always spoke highly of eminent domain. Very instructive.