For those who are following the political hackspersonship that is being fomented around the Supreme Court’s Kelo v New London decision: Today’s WaPo has a front page story and a double truck jump spread on what is happening in Southeast Federal District in response to the baseball stadium plan.

Actually there are three points to be made:

One: It is a crime that the stadium is going forward with little apparent conceptual planning to create a Balanced Community in the area between the Anacostia and the Southeast Freeway nor is there any reported acknowledgment of the National Capital Planning Commissions Year 2050 Plan to make South Capital Street into an new monumental corridor with, perhaps a great setting for a relocated Supreme Court complex.

Second: The front page picture of the two story Star Market/open air drug market which is now next to two new 14 story buildings is exactly the sort of problem (if there were a well considered, comprehensive plan) that would be helped by the majority opinion in Kelo and wiped out the knee jerk pandering to erect “safeguards.” See our post of 23 June on this Blog titled New London Hotel Panic.

Third: All that new development and all those new “private property rights/property value” would not exist unless the public was investing/coordinating half a billion dollars in infrastructure and facilities. That reality is omitted in all the discussions of “property rights.”

EMR