You may not know it, but your home is for sale. Across America, government and big business are teaming up to condemn people's homes and replace them with shopping centers and megastores such as Costco, Ikea and Home Depot. In fact, from just 1998 to 2003, there were 10,000 reported cases of cities and states condemning or threatening to condemn homes and businesses to make way for private companies to expand. Government's power to take property against the owner's will is called eminent domain; it is the subject of a case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear today. In Kelo v. New London, the court will consider whether the Constitution places any limits on eminent domain. The Fifth Amendment says that private property may be taken only for "public use," which in the past meant highways or government buildings. But in Kelo, a Connecticut town decided to "revitalize" the community by taking several properties and replacing them with a hotel, a health club and a marina to accompany a new research facility for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. Health clubs and corporate research are private uses, not public uses. But the city argues that "revitalization" would increase tax revenue and "create jobs." And a public benefit, the city says, is all the Constitution requires. The problem with that argument is that most businesses benefit the public. If our homes can be taken away whenever bureaucrats decide that somebody else would use them more effectively, then our property rights will be rendered meaningless. Unfortunately, the victims of eminent domain are most often the elderly, the poor and minorities. They lack the money and political power to persuade the government to respect their rights. But corporate lobbyists are very effective at persuading cities to give them someone else's land on the pretense that it will create jobs and improve the neighborhood -- especially when it will increase the city's tax base. [more]