(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2004 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
KELO ET AL. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF CONNECTICUT
No. 04–108. Argued February 22, 2005—Decided June 23, 2005
After approving an integrated development plan designed to revitalize
its ailing economy, respondent city, through its development agent,
purchased most of the property earmarked for the project from will-
ing sellers, but initiated condemnation proceedings when petitioners,
the owners of the rest of the property, refused to sell. Petitioners
brought this state-court action claiming, inter alia, that the taking of
their properties would violate the “public use” restriction in the Fifth
Amendment’s Takings Clause. The trial court granted a permanent
restraining order prohibiting the taking of the some of the properties,
but denying relief as to others. Relying on cases such as Hawaii
Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229, and Berman v. Parker,
348 U. S. 26, the Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed in part and
reversed in part, upholding all of the proposed takings.
Held: The city’s proposed disposition of petitioners’ property qualifies as
a “public use” within the meaning of the Takings Clause. Pp. 6–20.
(a) Though the city could not take petitioners’ land simply to confer
a private benefit on a particular private party, see, e.g., Midkiff, 467
U. S., at 245, the takings at issue here would be executed pursuant to
a carefully considered development plan, which was not adopted “to
benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals,” ibid. Moreover,
while the city is not planning to open the condemned land—at least
not in its entirety—to use by the general public, this “Court long ago
rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be put into
use for the . . . public.” Id., at 244. Rather, it has embraced the
broader and more natural interpretation of public use as “public pur-
pose.” See, e.g., Fallbrook Irrigation Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112,
158–164. Without exception, the Court has defined that concept
broadly, reflecting its longstanding policy of deference to legislative
judgments as to what public needs justify the use of the takings
2 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Syllabus
power. Berman, 348 U. S. 26; Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229; Ruckelshaus v.
Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986. Pp. 6–13.
(b) The city’s determination that the area at issue was sufficiently
distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to
deference. The city has carefully formulated a development plan that
it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, includ-
ing, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue. As with
other exercises in urban planning and development, the city is trying
to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential, and recreational
land uses, with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the
sum of its parts. To effectuate this plan, the city has invoked a state
statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to
promote economic development. Given the plan’s comprehensive char-
acter, the thorough deliberation that preceded its adoption, and the lim-
ited scope of this Court’s review in such cases, it is appropriate here, as
it was in Berman, to resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not
on a piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan. Because
that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings chal-
lenged here satisfy the Fifth Amendment. P. 13.
(c) Petitioners’ proposal that the Court adopt a new bright-line rule
that economic development does not qualify as a public use is sup-
ported by neither precedent nor logic. Promoting economic develop-
ment is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and
there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public
purposes the Court has recognized. See, e.g., Berman, 348 U. S., at
24. Also rejected is petitioners’ argument that for takings of this
kind the Court should require a “reasonable certainty” that the ex-
pected public benefits will actually accrue. Such a rule would repre-
sent an even greater departure from the Court’s precedent. E.g.,
Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 242. The disadvantages of a heightened form of
review are especially pronounced in this type of case, where orderly
implementation of a comprehensive plan requires all interested par-
ties’ legal rights to be established before new construction can com-
mence. The Court declines to second-guess the wisdom of the means
the city has selected to effectuate its plan. Berman, 348 U. S., at 26.
Pp. 13–20.
268 Conn. 1, 843 A. 2d 500, affirmed.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KENNEDY,
SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a con-
curring opinion. O’CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed
a dissenting opinion.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–108
_________________
SUSETTE KELO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
CONNECTICUT
[June 23, 2005]
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 2000, the city of New London approved a develop-
ment plan that, in the words of the Supreme Court of
Connecticut, was “projected to create in excess of 1,000
jobs, to increase tax and other revenues, and to revitalize
an economically distressed city, including its downtown
and waterfront areas.” 268 Conn. 1, 5, 843 A. 2d 500, 507
(2004). In assembling the land needed for this project, the
city’s development agent has purchased property from
willing sellers and proposes to use the power of eminent
domain to acquire the remainder of the property from
unwilling owners in exchange for just compensation. The
question presented is whether the city’s proposed disposi-
tion of this property qualifies as a “public use” within the
meaning of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to
the Constitution.1
——————
1 “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. That Clause is made applicable
to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Chicago, B. & Q. R.
Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897).
2 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
I
The city of New London (hereinafter City) sits at the
junction of the Thames River and the Long Island Sound
in southeastern Connecticut. Decades of economic decline
led a state agency in 1990 to designate the City a “dis-
tressed municipality.” In 1996, the Federal Government
closed the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which had
been located in the Fort Trumbull area of the City and had
employed over 1,500 people. In 1998, the City’s unem-
ployment rate was nearly double that of the State, and its
population of just under 24,000 residents was at its lowest
since 1920.
These conditions prompted state and local officials to
target New London, and particularly its Fort Trumbull
area, for economic revitalization. To this end, respondent
New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private
nonprofit entity established some years earlier to assist
the City in planning economic development, was reacti-
vated. In January 1998, the State authorized a $5.35
million bond issue to support the NLDC’s planning activi-
ties and a $10 million bond issue toward the creation of a
Fort Trumbull State Park. In February, the pharmaceuti-
cal company Pfizer Inc. announced that it would build a
$300 million research facility on a site immediately adja-
cent to Fort Trumbull; local planners hoped that Pfizer
would draw new business to the area, thereby serving as a
catalyst to the area’s rejuvenation. After receiving initial
approval from the city council, the NLDC continued its
planning activities and held a series of neighborhood
meetings to educate the public about the process. In May,
the city council authorized the NLDC to formally submit
its plans to the relevant state agencies for review.2 Upon
——————
2 Various state agencies studied the project’s economic, environ-
mental, and social ramifications. As part of this process, a team of
consultants evaluated six alternative development proposals for the
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
Opinion of the Court
obtaining state-level approval, the NLDC finalized an
integrated development plan focused on 90 acres of the
Fort Trumbull area.
The Fort Trumbull area is situated on a peninsula that
juts into the Thames River. The area comprises approxi-
mately 115 privately owned properties, as well as the 32
acres of land formerly occupied by the naval facility
(Trumbull State Park now occupies 18 of those 32 acres).
The development plan encompasses seven parcels. Parcel
1 is designated for a waterfront conference hotel at the
center of a “small urban village” that will include restau-
rants and shopping. This parcel will also have marinas for
both recreational and commercial uses. A pedestrian
“riverwalk” will originate here and continue down the
coast, connecting the waterfront areas of the development.
Parcel 2 will be the site of approximately 80 new resi-
dences organized into an urban neighborhood and linked
by public walkway to the remainder of the development,
including the state park. This parcel also includes space
reserved for a new U. S. Coast Guard Museum. Parcel 3,
which is located immediately north of the Pfizer facility,
will contain at least 90,000 square feet of research and
development office space. Parcel 4A is a 2.4-acre site that
will be used either to support the adjacent state park, by
providing parking or retail services for visitors, or to sup-
port the nearby marina. Parcel 4B will include a reno-
vated marina, as well as the final stretch of the riverwalk.
Parcels 5, 6, and 7 will provide land for office and retail
space, parking, and water-dependent commercial uses. 1
App. 109–113.
The NLDC intended the development plan to capitalize
——————
area, which varied in extensiveness and emphasis. The Office of
Planning and Management, one of the primary state agencies under-
taking the review, made findings that the project was consistent with
relevant state and municipal development policies. See 1 App. 89–95.
4 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
on the arrival of the Pfizer facility and the new commerce
it was expected to attract. In addition to creating jobs,
generating tax revenue, and helping to “build momentum
for the revitalization of downtown New London,” id., at 92,
the plan was also designed to make the City more attrac-
tive and to create leisure and recreational opportunities on
the waterfront and in the park.
The city council approved the plan in January 2000, and
designated the NLDC as its development agent in charge
of implementation. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §8–188 (2005).
The city council also authorized the NLDC to purchase
property or to acquire property by exercising eminent
domain in the City’s name. §8–193. The NLDC success-
fully negotiated the purchase of most of the real estate in
the 90-acre area, but its negotiations with petitioners
failed. As a consequence, in November 2000, the NLDC
initiated the condemnation proceedings that gave rise to
this case.3
II
Petitioner Susette Kelo has lived in the Fort Trumbull
area since 1997. She has made extensive improvements to
her house, which she prizes for its water view. Petitioner
Wilhelmina Dery was born in her Fort Trumbull house in
1918 and has lived there her entire life. Her husband
Charles (also a petitioner) has lived in the house since
they married some 60 years ago. In all, the nine petition-
ers own 15 properties in Fort Trumbull—4 in parcel 3 of
the development plan and 11 in parcel 4A. Ten of the
parcels are occupied by the owner or a family member; the
other five are held as investment properties. There is no
allegation that any of these properties is blighted or oth-
erwise in poor condition; rather, they were condemned
——————
3 In the remainder of the opinion we will differentiate between the
City and the NLDC only where necessary.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5
Opinion of the Court
only because they happen to be located in the development
area.
In December 2000, petitioners brought this action in the
New London Superior Court. They claimed, among other
things, that the taking of their properties would violate
the “public use” restriction in the Fifth Amendment. After
a 7-day bench trial, the Superior Court granted a perma-
nent restraining order prohibiting the taking of the prop-
erties located in parcel 4A (park or marina support). It,
however, denied petitioners relief as to the properties
located in parcel 3 (office space). 2 App. to Pet. for Cert.
343–350.4
After the Superior Court ruled, both sides took appeals
to the Supreme Court of Connecticut. That court held,
over a dissent, that all of the City’s proposed takings were
valid. It began by upholding the lower court’s determina-
tion that the takings were authorized by chapter 132, the
State’s municipal development statute. See Conn. Gen.
Stat. §8–186 et seq. (2005). That statute expresses a
legislative determination that the taking of land, even
developed land, as part of an economic development pro-
ject is a “public use” and in the “public interest.” 268
Conn., at 18–28, 843 A. 2d, at 515–521. Next, relying on
cases such as Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467
U. S. 229 (1984), and Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26
(1954), the court held that such economic development
qualified as a valid public use under both the Federal and
State Constitutions. 268 Conn., at 40, 843 A. 2d, at 527.
——————
4 While this litigation was pending before the Superior Court, the
NLDC announced that it would lease some of the parcels to private
developers in exchange for their agreement to develop the land accord-
ing to the terms of the development plan. Specifically, the NLDC was
negotiating a 99-year ground lease with Corcoran Jennison, a developer
selected from a group of applicants. The negotiations contemplated a
nominal rent of $1 per year, but no agreement had yet been signed. See
268 Conn. 1, 9, 61, 843 A. 2d 500, 509–510, 540 (2004).
6 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
Finally, adhering to its precedents, the court went on to
determine, first, whether the takings of the particular
properties at issue were “reasonably necessary” to achiev-
ing the City’s intended public use, id., at 82, 843 A. 2d, at
552–553, and, second, whether the takings were for “rea-
sonably foreseeable needs,” id., at 93, 843 A. 2d, at 558–
559. The court upheld the trial court’s factual findings as
to parcel 3, but reversed the trial court as to parcel 4A,
agreeing with the City that the intended use of this land
was sufficiently definite and had been given “reasonable
attention” during the planning process. Id., at 120–121,
843 A. 2d, at 574.
The three dissenting justices would have imposed a
“heightened” standard of judicial review for takings justi-
fied by economic development. Although they agreed that
the plan was intended to serve a valid public use, they
would have found all the takings unconstitutional because
the City had failed to adduce “clear and convincing evi-
dence” that the economic benefits of the plan would in fact
come to pass. Id., at 144, 146, 843 A. 2d, at 587, 588 (Za-
rella, J., joined by Sullivan, C. J., and Katz, J., concurring
in part and dissenting in part).
We granted certiorari to determine whether a city’s
decision to take property for the purpose of economic
development satisfies the “public use” requirement of the
Fifth Amendment. 542 U. S. ___ (2004).
III
Two polar propositions are perfectly clear. On the one
hand, it has long been accepted that the sovereign may not
take the property of A for the sole purpose of transferring
it to another private party B, even though A is paid just
compensation. On the other hand, it is equally clear that
a State may transfer property from one private party to
another if future “use by the public” is the purpose of the
taking; the condemnation of land for a railroad with com-
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7
Opinion of the Court
mon-carrier duties is a familiar example. Neither of these
propositions, however, determines the disposition of this
case.
As for the first proposition, the City would no doubt be
forbidden from taking petitioners’ land for the purpose of
conferring a private benefit on a particular private party.
See Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 245 (“A purely private taking
could not withstand the scrutiny of the public use require-
ment; it would serve no legitimate purpose of government
and would thus be void”); Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Ne-
braska, 164 U. S. 403 (1896).5 Nor would the City be al-
lowed to take property under the mere pretext of a public
purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private
benefit. The takings before us, however, would be exe-
cuted pursuant to a “carefully considered” development
plan. 268 Conn., at 54, 843 A. 2d, at 536. The trial judge
and all the members of the Supreme Court of Connecticut
agreed that there was no evidence of an illegitimate pur-
pose in this case.6 Therefore, as was true of the statute
——————
5 See also Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (“An ACT of the Legis-
lature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of
the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legis-
lative authority. . . . A few instances will suffice to explain what I
mean. . . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is
against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with
SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done
it. The genius, the nature, and the spirit, of our State Governments,
amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation; and the general
principles of law and reason forbid them” (emphasis deleted)).
6 See 268 Conn., at 159, 843 A. 2d, at 595 (Zarella, J., concurring in
part and dissenting in part) (“The record clearly demonstrates that the
development plan was not intended to serve the interests of Pfizer, Inc.,
or any other private entity, but rather, to revitalize the local economy
by creating temporary and permanent jobs, generating a significant
increase in tax revenue, encouraging spin-off economic activities and
maximizing public access to the waterfront”). And while the City
intends to transfer certain of the parcels to a private developer in a
long-term lease—which developer, in turn, is expected to lease the
8 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
challenged in Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 245, the City’s develop-
ment plan was not adopted “to benefit a particular class of
identifiable individuals.”
On the other hand, this is not a case in which the City is
planning to open the condemned land—at least not in its
entirety—to use by the general public. Nor will the pri-
vate lessees of the land in any sense be required to operate
like common carriers, making their services available to
all comers. But although such a projected use would be
sufficient to satisfy the public use requirement, this
“Court long ago rejected any literal requirement that
condemned property be put into use for the general pub-
lic.” Id., at 244. Indeed, while many state courts in the
mid-19th century endorsed “use by the public” as the
proper definition of public use, that narrow view steadily
eroded over time. Not only was the “use by the public”
test difficult to administer (e.g., what proportion of the
public need have access to the property? at what price?),7
but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and al-
ways evolving needs of society.8 Accordingly, when this
——————
office space and so forth to other private tenants—the identities of
those private parties were not known when the plan was adopted. It is,
of course, difficult to accuse the government of having taken A’s prop-
erty to benefit the private interests of B when the identity of B was
unknown.
7 See, e.g., Dayton Gold & Silver Mining Co. v. Seawell, 11 Nev. 394,
410, 1876 WL 4573, *11 (1876) (“If public occupation and enjoyment of
the object for which land is to be condemned furnishes the only and
true test for the right of eminent domain, then the legislature would
certainly have the constitutional authority to condemn the lands of any
private citizen for the purpose of building hotels and theaters. Why
not? A hotel is used by the public as much as a railroad. The public
have the same right, upon payment of a fixed compensation, to seek
rest and refreshment at a public inn as they have to travel upon a
railroad”).
8 From upholding the Mill Acts (which authorized manufacturers
dependent on power-producing dams to flood upstream lands in ex-
change for just compensation), to approving takings necessary for the
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 9
Opinion of the Court
Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States
at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader
and more natural interpretation of public use as “public
purpose.” See, e.g., Fallbrook Irrigation Dist. v. Bradley,
164 U. S. 112, 158–164 (1896). Thus, in a case upholding
a mining company’s use of an aerial bucket line to trans-
port ore over property it did not own, Justice Holmes’
opinion for the Court stressed “the inadequacy of use by
the general public as a universal test.” Strickley v. High-
land Boy Gold Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 531 (1906).9 We
have repeatedly and consistently rejected that narrow test
ever since.10
——————
economic development of the West through mining and irrigation, many
state courts either circumvented the “use by the public” test when
necessary or abandoned it completely. See Nichols, The Meaning of
Public Use in the Law of Eminent Domain, 20 B. U. L. Rev. 615, 619–
624 (1940) (tracing this development and collecting cases). For exam-
ple, in rejecting the “use by the public” test as overly restrictive, the
Nevada Supreme Court stressed that “[m]ining is the greatest of the
industrial pursuits in this state. All other interests are subservient to
it. Our mountains are almost barren of timber, and our valleys could
never be made profitable for agricultural purposes except for the fact of
a home market having been created by the mining developments in
different sections of the state. The mining and milling interests give
employment to many men, and the benefits derived from this business
are distributed as much, and sometimes more, among the laboring
classes than with the owners of the mines and mills. . . . The present
prosperity of the state is entirely due to the mining developments
already made, and the entire people of the state are directly interested
in having the future developments unobstructed by the obstinate action
of any individual or individuals.” Dayton Gold & Silver Mining Co., 11
Nev., at 409–410, 1876 WL, at *11.
9 See also Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361 (1905) (upholding a statute that
authorized the owner of arid land to widen a ditch on his neighbor’s
property so as to permit a nearby stream to irrigate his land).
10 See, e.g., Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Inter-
state Power Co., 240 U. S. 30, 32 (1916) (“The inadequacy of use by the
general public as a universal test is established”); Ruckelshaus v.
Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1014–1015 (1984) (“This Court, however,
has rejected the notion that a use is a public use only if the property
10 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
The disposition of this case therefore turns on the ques-
tion whether the City’s development plan serves a “public
purpose.” Without exception, our cases have defined that
concept broadly, reflecting our longstanding policy of
deference to legislative judgments in this field.
In Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954), this Court
upheld a redevelopment plan targeting a blighted area of
Washington, D. C., in which most of the housing for the
area’s 5,000 inhabitants was beyond repair. Under the
plan, the area would be condemned and part of it utilized
for the construction of streets, schools, and other public
facilities. The remainder of the land would be leased or
sold to private parties for the purpose of redevelopment,
including the construction of low-cost housing.
The owner of a department store located in the area
challenged the condemnation, pointing out that his store
was not itself blighted and arguing that the creation of a
“better balanced, more attractive community” was not a
valid public use. Id., at 31. Writing for a unanimous
Court, Justice Douglas refused to evaluate this claim in
isolation, deferring instead to the legislative and agency
judgment that the area “must be planned as a whole” for
the plan to be successful. Id., at 34. The Court explained
that “community redevelopment programs need not, by
force of the Constitution, be on a piecemeal basis—lot by
lot, building by building.” Id., at 35. The public use un-
derlying the taking was unequivocally affirmed:
“We do not sit to determine whether a particular
housing project is or is not desirable. The concept of
the public welfare is broad and inclusive. . . . The val-
ues it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aes-
thetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of
the legislature to determine that the community
should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as
——————
taken is put to use for the general public”).
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 11
Opinion of the Court
well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully pa-
trolled. In the present case, the Congress and its au-
thorized agencies have made determinations that take
into account a wide variety of values. It is not for us
to reappraise them. If those who govern the District
of Columbia decide that the Nation’s Capital should
be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in
the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.” Id., at
33.
In Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229
(1984), the Court considered a Hawaii statute whereby fee
title was taken from lessors and transferred to lessees (for
just compensation) in order to reduce the concentration of
land ownership. We unanimously upheld the statute and
rejected the Ninth Circuit’s view that it was “a naked
attempt on the part of the state of Hawaii to take the
property of A and transfer it to B solely for B’s private use
and benefit.” Id., at 235 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). Reaffirming Berman’s deferential approach to legis-
lative judgments in this field, we concluded that the
State’s purpose of eliminating the “social and economic
evils of a land oligopoly” qualified as a valid public use.
467 U. S., at 241–242. Our opinion also rejected the con-
tention that the mere fact that the State immediately
transferred the properties to private individuals upon
condemnation somehow diminished the public character of
the taking. “[I]t is only the taking’s purpose, and not its
mechanics,” we explained, that matters in determining
public use. Id., at 244.
In that same Term we decided another public use case
that arose in a purely economic context. In Ruckelshaus v.
Monsanto, Co., 467 U. S. 986 (1984), the Court dealt with
provisions of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Ro-
denticide Act under which the Environmental Protection
Agency could consider the data (including trade secrets)
12 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
submitted by a prior pesticide applicant in evaluating a
subsequent application, so long as the second applicant
paid just compensation for the data. We acknowledged
that the “most direct beneficiaries” of these provisions
were the subsequent applicants, id., at 1014, but we nev-
ertheless upheld the statute under Berman and Midkiff.
We found sufficient Congress’ belief that sparing appli-
cants the cost of time-consuming research eliminated a
significant barrier to entry in the pesticide market and
thereby enhanced competition. 467 U. S., at 1015.
Viewed as a whole, our jurisprudence has recognized
that the needs of society have varied between different
parts of the Nation, just as they have evolved over time in
response to changed circumstances. Our earliest cases in
particular embodied a strong theme of federalism, empha-
sizing the “great respect” that we owe to state legislatures
and state courts in discerning local public needs. See
Hairston v. Danville & Western R. Co., 208 U. S. 598, 606–
607 (1908) (noting that these needs were likely to vary
depending on a State’s “resources, the capacity of the soil,
the relative importance of industries to the general public
welfare, and the long-established methods and habits of the
people”).11 For more than a century, our public use juris-
——————
11 See also Clark, 198 U. S., at 367–368; Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold
Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 531 (1906) (“In the opinion of the legislature
and the Supreme Court of Utah the public welfare of that State demands
that aerial lines between the mines upon its mountain sides and railways
in the valleys below should not be made impossible by the refusal of a
private owner to sell the right to cross his land. The Constitution of the
United States does not require us to say that they are wrong”); O’Neill v.
Leamer, 239 U. S. 244, 253 (1915) (“States may take account of their
special exigencies, and when the extent of their arid or wet lands is such
that a plan for irrigation or reclamation according to districts may fairly
be regarded as one which promotes the public interest, there is nothing in
the Federal Constitution which denies to them the right to formulate this
policy or to exercise the power of eminent domain in carrying it into effect.
With the local situation the state court is peculiarly familiar and its
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13
Opinion of the Court
prudence has wisely eschewed rigid formulas and intru-
sive scrutiny in favor of affording legislatures broad lati-
tude in determining what public needs justify the use of
the takings power.
IV
Those who govern the City were not confronted with the
need to remove blight in the Fort Trumbull area, but their
determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to
justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to
our deference. The City has carefully formulated an eco-
nomic development plan that it believes will provide ap-
preciable benefits to the community, including—but by no
means limited to—new jobs and increased tax revenue. As
with other exercises in urban planning and development,12
the City is endeavoring to coordinate a variety of commer-
cial, residential, and recreational uses of land, with the
hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of
its parts. To effectuate this plan, the City has invoked a
state statute that specifically authorizes the use of emi-
nent domain to promote economic development. Given the
comprehensive character of the plan, the thorough delibera-
tion that preceded its adoption, and the limited scope of our
review, it is appropriate for us, as it was in Berman, to
resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not on a
piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan.
Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose,
the takings challenged here satisfy the public use require-
ment of the Fifth Amendment.
To avoid this result, petitioners urge us to adopt a new
bright-line rule that economic development does not qual-
ify as a public use. Putting aside the unpersuasive sug-
gestion that the City’s plan will provide only purely eco-
——————
judgment is entitled to the highest respect”).
12 Cf. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926).
14 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
nomic benefits, neither precedent nor logic supports peti-
tioners’ proposal. Promoting economic development is a
traditional and long accepted function of government.
There is, moreover, no principled way of distinguishing
economic development from the other public purposes that
we have recognized. In our cases upholding takings that
facilitated agriculture and mining, for example, we em-
phasized the importance of those industries to the welfare
of the States in question, see, e.g., Strickley, 200 U. S. 527;
in Berman, we endorsed the purpose of transforming a
blighted area into a “well-balanced” community through
redevelopment, 348 U. S., at 33;13 in Midkiff, we upheld
the interest in breaking up a land oligopoly that “created
artificial deterrents to the normal functioning of the
State’s residential land market,” 467 U. S., at 242; and in
Monsanto, we accepted Congress’ purpose of eliminating a
“significant barrier to entry in the pesticide market,” 467
U. S., at 1014–1015. It would be incongruous to hold that
the City’s interest in the economic benefits to be derived
from the development of the Fort Trumbull area has less
of a public character than any of those other interests.
Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic devel-
——————
13 It is a misreading of Berman to suggest that the only public use
upheld in that case was the initial removal of blight. See Reply Brief
for Petitioners 8. The public use described in Berman extended beyond
that to encompass the purpose of developing that area to create condi-
tions that would prevent a reversion to blight in the future. See 348
U. S., at 34–35 (“It was not enough, [the experts] believed, to remove
existing buildings that were insanitary or unsightly. It was important
to redesign the whole area so as to eliminate the conditions that cause
slums. . . . The entire area needed redesigning so that a balanced,
integrated plan could be developed for the region, including not only
new homes, but also schools, churches, parks, streets, and shopping
centers. In this way it was hoped that the cycle of decay of the area
could be controlled and the birth of future slums prevented”). Had the
public use in Berman been defined more narrowly, it would have been
difficult to justify the taking of the plaintiff’s nonblighted department
store.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 15
Opinion of the Court
opment from our traditionally broad understanding of
public purpose.
Petitioners contend that using eminent domain for
economic development impermissibly blurs the boundary
between public and private takings. Again, our cases
foreclose this objection. Quite simply, the government’s
pursuit of a public purpose will often benefit individual
private parties. For example, in Midkiff, the forced trans-
fer of property conferred a direct and significant benefit on
those lessees who were previously unable to purchase
their homes. In Monsanto, we recognized that the “most
direct beneficiaries” of the data-sharing provisions were
the subsequent pesticide applicants, but benefiting them
in this way was necessary to promoting competition in the
pesticide market. 467 U. S., at 1014.14 The owner of the
department store in Berman objected to “taking from one
businessman for the benefit of another businessman,” 348
U. S., at 33, referring to the fact that under the redevel-
opment plan land would be leased or sold to private devel-
opers for redevelopment.15 Our rejection of that conten-
tion has particular relevance to the instant case: “The
public end may be as well or better served through an
agency of private enterprise than through a department of
——————
14 Any number of cases illustrate that the achievement of a public
good often coincides with the immediate benefiting of private parties.
See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine
Corp., 503 U. S. 407, 422 (1992) (public purpose of “facilitating Amtrak’s
rail service” served by taking rail track from one private company and
transferring it to another private company); Brown v. Legal Foundation
of Wash., 538 U. S. 216 (2003) (provision of legal services to the poor is
a valid public purpose). It is worth noting that in Hawaii Housing
Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984), Monsanto, and Boston &
Maine Corp., the property in question retained the same use even after
the change of ownership.
15 Notably, as in the instant case, the private developers in Berman
were required by contract to use the property to carry out the redevel-
opment plan. See 348 U. S., at 30.
16 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
government—or so the Congress might conclude. We
cannot say that public ownership is the sole method of
promoting the public purposes of community redevelop-
ment projects.” Id., at 34.16
It is further argued that without a bright-line rule
nothing would stop a city from transferring citizen A’s
property to citizen B for the sole reason that citizen B will
put the property to a more productive use and thus pay
more taxes. Such a one-to-one transfer of property, exe-
cuted outside the confines of an integrated development
plan, is not presented in this case. While such an unusual
exercise of government power would certainly raise a
suspicion that a private purpose was afoot,17 the hypo-
——————
16 Nor do our cases support JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s novel theory that the
government may only take property and transfer it to private parties
when the initial taking eliminates some “harmful property use.” Post,
at 8 (dissenting opinion). There was nothing “harmful” about the
nonblighted department store at issue in Berman, 348 U. S. 26; see also
n. 13, supra; nothing “harmful” about the lands at issue in the mining
and agriculture cases, see, e.g., Strickley, 200 U. S. 527; see also nn. 9,
11, supra; and certainly nothing “harmful” about the trade secrets
owned by the pesticide manufacturers in Monsanto, 467 U. S. 986. In
each case, the public purpose we upheld depended on a private party’s
future use of the concededly nonharmful property that was taken. By
focusing on a property’s future use, as opposed to its past use, our cases
are faithful to the text of the Takings Clause. See U. S. Const., Amdt.
5. (“[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation”). JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s intimation that a “public purpose”
may not be achieved by the action of private parties, see post, at 8,
confuses the purpose of a taking with its mechanics, a mistake
we warned of in Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 244. See also Berman, 348 U. S.,
at 33–34 (“The public end may be as well or better served through
an agency of private enterprise than through a department of
government”).
17 Courts have viewed such aberrations with a skeptical eye. See, e.g.,
99 Cents Only Stores v. Lancaster Redevelopment Agency, 237 F. Supp.
2d 1123 (CD Cal. 2001); cf. Cincinnati v. Vester, 281 U. S. 439, 448
(1930) (taking invalid under state eminent domain statute for lack of a
reasoned explanation). These types of takings may also implicate other
constitutional guarantees. See Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 17
Opinion of the Court
thetical cases posited by petitioners can be confronted if
and when they arise.18 They do not warrant the crafting of
an artificial restriction on the concept of public use.19
Alternatively, petitioners maintain that for takings of
this kind we should require a “reasonable certainty” that
the expected public benefits will actually accrue. Such a
rule, however, would represent an even greater departure
from our precedent. “When the legislature’s purpose is
legitimate and its means are not irrational, our cases
make clear that empirical debates over the wisdom of
takings—no less than debates over the wisdom of other
kinds of socioeconomic legislation—are not to be carried
out in the federal courts.” Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 242.20
——————
U. S. 562 (2000) (per curiam).
18 Cf. Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223
(1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (“The power to tax is not the power to
destroy while this Court sits”).
19 A parade of horribles is especially unpersuasive in this context,
since the Takings Clause largely “operates as a conditional limitation,
permitting the government to do what it wants so long as it pays the
charge.” Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498, 545 (1998)
(KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part). Speak-
ing of the takings power, Justice Iredell observed that “[i]t is not
sufficient to urge, that the power may be abused, for, such is the nature
of all power—such is the tendency of every human institution: and, it
might as fairly be said, that the power of taxation, which is only cir-
cumscribed by the discretion of the Body, in which it is vested, ought
not to be granted, because the Legislature, disregarding its true objects,
might, for visionary and useless projects, impose a tax to the amount of
nineteen shillings in the pound. We must be content to limit power
where we can, and where we cannot, consistently with its use, we must
be content to repose a salutory confidence.” Calder, 3 Dall., at 400
(opinion concurring in result).
20 See also Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S., at 422–423 (“[W]e need not
make a specific factual determination whether the condemnation will
accomplish its objectives”); Monsanto, 467 U. S., at 1015, n. 18 (“Mon-
santo argues that EPA and, by implication, Congress, misapprehended
the true ‘barriers to entry’ in the pesticide industry and that the chal-
lenged provisions of the law create, rather than reduce, barriers to
entry. . . . Such economic arguments are better directed to Congress.
18 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
Indeed, earlier this Term we explained why similar practi-
cal concerns (among others) undermined the use of the
“substantially advances” formula in our regulatory takings
doctrine. See Lingle v. Chevron U. S. A. Inc., 544 U. S.
___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 14–15) (noting that this for-
mula “would empower—and might often require—courts
to substitute their predictive judgments for those of
elected legislatures and expert agencies”). The disadvan-
tages of a heightened form of review are especially pro-
nounced in this type of case. Orderly implementation of a
comprehensive redevelopment plan obviously requires
that the legal rights of all interested parties be established
before new construction can be commenced. A constitu-
tional rule that required postponement of the judicial
approval of every condemnation until the likelihood of
success of the plan had been assured would unquestiona-
bly impose a significant impediment to the successful
consummation of many such plans.
Just as we decline to second-guess the City’s considered
judgments about the efficacy of its development plan, we
also decline to second-guess the City’s determinations as
to what lands it needs to acquire in order to effectuate the
project. “It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the
boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particu-
lar project area. Once the question of the public purpose
has been decided, the amount and character of land to be
taken for the project and the need for a particular tract to
complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of the
legislative branch.” Berman, 348 U. S., at 35–36.
In affirming the City’s authority to take petitioners’
properties, we do not minimize the hardship that condem-
——————
The proper inquiry before this Court is not whether the provisions in
fact will accomplish their stated objectives. Our review is limited to
determining that the purpose is legitimate and that Congress rationally
could have believed that the provisions would promote that objective”).
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 19
Opinion of the Court
nations may entail, notwithstanding the payment of just
compensation.21 We emphasize that nothing in our opin-
ion precludes any State from placing further restrictions
on its exercise of the takings power. Indeed, many States
already impose “public use” requirements that are stricter
than the federal baseline. Some of these requirements
have been established as a matter of state constitutional
law,22 while others are expressed in state eminent domain
statutes that carefully limit the grounds upon which tak-
ings may be exercised.23 As the submissions of the parties
and their amici make clear, the necessity and wisdom of
using eminent domain to promote economic development
are certainly matters of legitimate public debate.24 This
Court’s authority, however, extends only to determining
whether the City’s proposed condemnations are for a
“public use” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment
to the Federal Constitution. Because over a century of our
——————
21 The amici raise questions about the fairness of the measure of just
compensation. See, e.g., Brief for American Planning Association et al.
as Amici Curiae 26–30. While important, these questions are not
before us in this litigation.
22 See, e.g., County of Wayne v. Hathcock, 471 Mich. 445, 684 N. W. 2d
765 (2004).
23 Under California law, for instance, a city may only take land for
economic development purposes in blighted areas. Cal. Health &
Safety Code Ann. §§33030–33037 (West 1997). See, e.g., Redevelopment
Agency of Chula Vista v. Rados Bros., 95 Cal. App. 4th 309 (2002).
24 For example, some argue that the need for eminent domain has
been greatly exaggerated because private developers can use numerous
techniques, including secret negotiations or precommitment strategies,
to overcome holdout problems and assemble lands for genuinely profit-
able projects. See Brief for Jane Jacobs as Amicus Curiae 13–15; see
also Brief for John Norquist as Amicus Curiae. Others argue to the
contrary, urging that the need for eminent domain is especially great
with regard to older, small cities like New London, where centuries of
development have created an extreme overdivision of land and thus a
real market impediment to land assembly. See Brief for Connecticut
Conference for Municipalities et al. as Amici Curiae 13, 21; see also
Brief for National League of Cities et al. as Amici Curiae.
20 KELO v. NEW LONDON
Opinion of the Court
case law interpreting that provision dictates an affirma-
tive answer to that question, we may not grant petitioners
the relief that they seek.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Connecticut is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
KENNEDY, J., concurring
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–108
_________________
SUSETTE KELO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
CONNECTICUT
[June 23, 2005]
JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring.
I join the opinion for the Court and add these further
observations.
This Court has declared that a taking should be upheld
as consistent with the Public Use Clause, U. S. Const.,
Amdt. 5., as long as it is “rationally related to a conceiv-
able public purpose.” Hawaii Housing Authority v. Mid-
kiff, 467 U. S. 229, 241 (1984); see also Berman v. Parker,
348 U. S. 26 (1954). This deferential standard of review
echoes the rational-basis test used to review economic
regulation under the Due Process and Equal Protection
Clauses, see, e.g., FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508
U. S. 307, 313–314 (1993); Williamson v. Lee Optical of
Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483 (1955). The determination that
a rational-basis standard of review is appropriate does
not, however, alter the fact that transfers intended to
confer benefits on particular, favored private entities, and
with only incidental or pretextual public benefits, are
forbidden by the Public Use Clause.
A court applying rational-basis review under the Public
Use Clause should strike down a taking that, by a clear
showing, is intended to favor a particular private party,
with only incidental or pretextual public benefits, just as a
court applying rational-basis review under the Equal
Protection Clause must strike down a government classifi-
2 KELO v. NEW LONDON
KENNEDY, J., concurring
cation that is clearly intended to injure a particular class
of private parties, with only incidental or pretextual public
justifications. See Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center,
Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 446–447, 450 (1985); Department of
Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 533–536 (1973). As
the trial court in this case was correct to observe, “Where
the purpose [of a taking] is economic development and
that development is to be carried out by private parties or
private parties will be benefited, the court must decide if
the stated public purpose—economic advantage to a city
sorely in need of it—is only incidental to the benefits that
will be confined on private parties of a development plan.”
2 App. to Pet. for Cert. 263. See also ante, at 7.
A court confronted with a plausible accusation of imper-
missible favoritism to private parties should treat the
objection as a serious one and review the record to see if it
has merit, though with the presumption that the govern-
ment’s actions were reasonable and intended to serve a
public purpose. Here, the trial court conducted a careful
and extensive inquiry into “whether, in fact, the develop-
ment plan is of primary benefit to . . . the developer [i.e.,
Corcoran Jennison], and private businesses which may
eventually locate in the plan area [e.g., Pfizer], and in that
regard, only of incidental benefit to the city.” 2 App. to
Pet. for Cert. 261. The trial court considered testimony
from government officials and corporate officers; id., at
266–271; documentary evidence of communications be-
tween these parties, ibid.; respondents’ awareness of New
London’s depressed economic condition and evidence
corroborating the validity of this concern, id., at 272–273,
278–279; the substantial commitment of public funds by
the State to the development project before most of the
private beneficiaries were known, id., at 276; evidence
that respondents reviewed a variety of development plans
and chose a private developer from a group of applicants
rather than picking out a particular transferee before-
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
KENNEDY, J., concurring
hand, id., at 273, 278; and the fact that the other private
beneficiaries of the project are still unknown because the
office space proposed to be built has not yet been rented,
id., at 278.
The trial court concluded, based on these findings, that
benefiting Pfizer was not “the primary motivation or effect
of this development plan”; instead, “the primary motiva-
tion for [respondents] was to take advantage of Pfizer’s
presence.” Id., at 276. Likewise, the trial court concluded
that “[t]here is nothing in the record to indicate that . . .
[respondents] were motivated by a desire to aid [other]
particular private entities.” Id., at 278. See also ante, at
7–8. Even the dissenting justices on the Connecticut
Supreme Court agreed that respondents’ development
plan was intended to revitalize the local economy, not to
serve the interests of Pfizer, Corcoran Jennison, or any
other private party. 268 Conn. 1, 159, 843 A. 2d 500, 595
(2004) (Zarella, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part). This case, then, survives the meaningful rational
basis review that in my view is required under the Public
Use Clause.
Petitioners and their amici argue that any taking justi-
fied by the promotion of economic development must be
treated by the courts as per se invalid, or at least pre-
sumptively invalid. Petitioners overstate the need for
such a rule, however, by making the incorrect assumption
that review under Berman and Midkiff imposes no mean-
ingful judicial limits on the government’s power to con-
demn any property it likes. A broad per se rule or a strong
presumption of invalidity, furthermore, would prohibit a
large number of government takings that have the pur-
pose and expected effect of conferring substantial benefits
on the public at large and so do not offend the Public Use
Clause.
My agreement with the Court that a presumption of
invalidity is not warranted for economic development
4 KELO v. NEW LONDON
KENNEDY, J., concurring
takings in general, or for the particular takings at issue in
this case, does not foreclose the possibility that a more
stringent standard of review than that announced in
Berman and Midkiff might be appropriate for a more
narrowly drawn category of takings. There may be private
transfers in which the risk of undetected impermissible
favoritism of private parties is so acute that a presumption
(rebuttable or otherwise) of invalidity is warranted under
the Public Use Clause. Cf. Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524
U. S. 498, 549–550 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in
judgment and dissenting in part) (heightened scrutiny for
retroactive legislation under the Due Process Clause). This
demanding level of scrutiny, however, is not required simply
because the purpose of the taking is economic development.
This is not the occasion for conjecture as to what sort of
cases might justify a more demanding standard, but it is
appropriate to underscore aspects of the instant case that
convince me no departure from Berman and Midkiff is
appropriate here. This taking occurred in the context of a
comprehensive development plan meant to address a
serious city-wide depression, and the projected economic
benefits of the project cannot be characterized as de mini-
mus. The identity of most of the private beneficiaries were
unknown at the time the city formulated its plans. The
city complied with elaborate procedural requirements that
facilitate review of the record and inquiry into the city’s
purposes. In sum, while there may be categories of cases in
which the transfers are so suspicious, or the procedures
employed so prone to abuse, or the purported benefits are
so trivial or implausible, that courts should presume an
impermissible private purpose, no such circumstances are
present in this case.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, I join in the Court’s opinion.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–108
_________________
SUSETTE KELO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
CONNECTICUT
[June 23, 2005]
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE,
JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was
ratified, Justice Chase wrote:
“An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law)
contrary to the great first principles of the social com-
pact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legis-
lative authority . . . . A few instances will suffice to
explain what I mean. . . . [A] law that takes property
from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and
justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with
SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed
that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386,
388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation
on government power. Under the banner of economic
development, all private property is now vulnerable to
being taken and transferred to another private owner, so
long as it might be upgraded—i.e., given to an owner who
will use it in a way that the legislature deems more bene-
ficial to the public—in the process. To reason, as the
Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting
from the subsequent ordinary use of private property
render economic development takings “for public use” is to
2 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
wash out any distinction between private and public use of
property—and thereby effectively to delete the words “for
public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amend-
ment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent.
I
Petitioners are nine resident or investment owners of 15
homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London,
Connecticut. Petitioner Wilhelmina Dery, for example,
lives in a house on Walbach Street that has been in her
family for over 100 years. She was born in the house in
1918; her husband, petitioner Charles Dery, moved into
the house when they married in 1946. Their son lives next
door with his family in the house he received as a wedding
gift, and joins his parents in this suit. Two petitioners
keep rental properties in the neighborhood.
In February 1998, Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceuticals
manufacturer, announced that it would build a global
research facility near the Fort Trumbull neighborhood.
Two months later, New London’s city council gave initial
approval for the New London Development Corporation
(NLDC) to prepare the development plan at issue here.
The NLDC is a private, nonprofit corporation whose mis-
sion is to assist the city council in economic development
planning. It is not elected by popular vote, and its direc-
tors and employees are privately appointed. Consistent
with its mandate, the NLDC generated an ambitious plan
for redeveloping 90 acres of Fort Trumbull in order to
“complement the facility that Pfizer was planning to build,
create jobs, increase tax and other revenues, encourage
public access to and use of the city’s waterfront, and even-
tually ‘build momentum’ for the revitalization of the rest
of the city.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 5.
Petitioners own properties in two of the plan’s seven
parcels—Parcel 3 and Parcel 4A. Under the plan, Parcel 3
is slated for the construction of research and office space
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
as a market develops for such space. It will also retain the
existing Italian Dramatic Club (a private cultural organi-
zation) though the homes of three plaintiffs in that parcel
are to be demolished. Parcel 4A is slated, mysteriously,
for “ ‘park support.’ ” Id., at 345–346. At oral argument,
counsel for respondents conceded the vagueness of this
proposed use, and offered that the parcel might eventually
be used for parking. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36.
To save their homes, petitioners sued New London and
the NLDC, to whom New London has delegated eminent
domain power. Petitioners maintain that the Fifth
Amendment prohibits the NLDC from condemning their
properties for the sake of an economic development plan.
Petitioners are not hold-outs; they do not seek increased
compensation, and none is opposed to new development in
the area. Theirs is an objection in principle: They claim
that the NLDC’s proposed use for their confiscated prop-
erty is not a “public” one for purposes of the Fifth Amend-
ment. While the government may take their homes to
build a road or a railroad or to eliminate a property use
that harms the public, say petitioners, it cannot take their
property for the private use of other owners simply be-
cause the new owners may make more productive use of
the property.
II
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, made appli-
cable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, pro-
vides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public
use, without just compensation.” When interpreting the
Constitution, we begin with the unremarkable presump-
tion that every word in the document has independent
meaning, “that no word was unnecessarily used, or need-
lessly added.” Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583, 588
(1938). In keeping with that presumption, we have read
the Fifth Amendment’s language to impose two distinct
4 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
conditions on the exercise of eminent domain: “the taking
must be for a ‘public use’ and ‘just compensation’ must be
paid to the owner.” Brown v. Legal Foundation of Wash.,
538 U. S. 216, 231–232 (2003).
These two limitations serve to protect “the security of
Property,” which Alexander Hamilton described to the
Philadelphia Convention as one of the “great obj[ects] of
Gov[ernment].” 1 Records of the Federal Convention of
1787, p. 302 (M. Farrand ed. 1934). Together they ensure
stable property ownership by providing safeguards against
excessive, unpredictable, or unfair use of the government’s
eminent domain power—particularly against those owners
who, for whatever reasons, may be unable to protect
themselves in the political process against the majority’s
will.
While the Takings Clause presupposes that government
can take private property without the owner’s consent, the
just compensation requirement spreads the cost of con-
demnations and thus “prevents the public from loading
upon one individual more than his just share of the bur-
dens of government.” Monongahela Nav. Co. v. United
States, 148 U. S. 312, 325 (1893); see also Armstrong v.
United States, 364 U. S. 40, 49 (1960). The public use
requirement, in turn, imposes a more basic limitation,
circumscribing the very scope of the eminent domain
power: Government may compel an individual to forfeit
her property for the public’s use, but not for the benefit of
another private person. This requirement promotes fair-
ness as well as security. Cf. Tahoe-Sierra Preservation
Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535
U. S. 302, 336 (2002) (“The concepts of ‘fairness and jus-
tice’ . . . underlie the Takings Clause”).
Where is the line between “public” and “private” prop-
erty use? We give considerable deference to legislatures’
determinations about what governmental activities will
advantage the public. But were the political branches the
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
sole arbiters of the public-private distinction, the Public
Use Clause would amount to little more than hortatory
fluff. An external, judicial check on how the public use
requirement is interpreted, however limited, is necessary
if this constraint on government power is to retain any
meaning. See Cincinnati v. Vester, 281 U. S. 439, 446
(1930) (“It is well established that . . . the question [of]
what is a public use is a judicial one”).
Our cases have generally identified three categories of
takings that comply with the public use requirement,
though it is in the nature of things that the boundaries
between these categories are not always firm. Two are
relatively straightforward and uncontroversial. First, the
sovereign may transfer private property to public owner-
ship—such as for a road, a hospital, or a military base.
See, e.g., Old Dominion Land Co. v. United States, 269
U. S. 55 (1925); Rindge Co. v. County of Los Angeles, 262
U. S. 700 (1923). Second, the sovereign may transfer
private property to private parties, often common carriers,
who make the property available for the public’s use—
such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium. See,
e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston &
Maine Corp., 503 U. S. 407 (1992); Mt. Vernon-Woodberry
Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240
U. S. 30 (1916). But “public ownership” and “use-by-the-
public” are sometimes too constricting and impractical
ways to define the scope of the Public Use Clause. Thus
we have allowed that, in certain circumstances and to
meet certain exigencies, takings that serve a public pur-
pose also satisfy the Constitution even if the property is
destined for subsequent private use. See, e.g., Berman v.
Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954); Hawaii Housing Authority v.
Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984).
This case returns us for the first time in over 20 years to
the hard question of when a purportedly “public purpose”
taking meets the public use requirement. It presents an
6 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
issue of first impression: Are economic development tak-
ings constitutional? I would hold that they are not. We
are guided by two precedents about the taking of real
property by eminent domain. In Berman, we upheld
takings within a blighted neighborhood of Washington,
D. C. The neighborhood had so deteriorated that, for
example, 64.3% of its dwellings were beyond repair. 348
U. S., at 30. It had become burdened with “overcrowding
of dwellings,” “lack of adequate streets and alleys,” and
“lack of light and air.” Id., at 34. Congress had deter-
mined that the neighborhood had become “injurious to the
public health, safety, morals, and welfare” and that it was
necessary to “eliminat[e] all such injurious conditions by
employing all means necessary and appropriate for the
purpose,” including eminent domain. Id., at 28. Mr.
Berman’s department store was not itself blighted. Hav-
ing approved of Congress’ decision to eliminate the harm
to the public emanating from the blighted neighborhood,
however, we did not second-guess its decision to treat the
neighborhood as a whole rather than lot-by-lot. Id., at
34–35; see also Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 244 (“it is only the
taking’s purpose, and not its mechanics, that must pass
scrutiny”).
In Midkiff, we upheld a land condemnation scheme in
Hawaii whereby title in real property was taken from
lessors and transferred to lessees. At that time, the State
and Federal Governments owned nearly 49% of the State’s
land, and another 47% was in the hands of only 72 private
landowners. Concentration of land ownership was so
dramatic that on the State’s most urbanized island, Oahu,
22 landowners owned 72.5% of the fee simple titles. Id., at
232. The Hawaii Legislature had concluded that the
oligopoly in land ownership was “skewing the State’s
residential fee simple market, inflating land prices, and
injuring the public tranquility and welfare,” and therefore
enacted a condemnation scheme for redistributing title.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
Ibid.
In those decisions, we emphasized the importance of
deferring to legislative judgments about public purpose.
Because courts are ill-equipped to evaluate the efficacy of
proposed legislative initiatives, we rejected as unworkable
the idea of courts’ “ ‘deciding on what is and is not a gov-
ernmental function and . . . invalidating legislation on the
basis of their view on that question at the moment of
decision, a practice which has proved impracticable in
other fields.’ ” Id., at 240–241 (quoting United States ex
rel. TVA v. Welch, 327 U. S. 546, 552 (1946)); see Berman,
supra, at 32 (“[T]he legislature, not the judiciary, is the
main guardian of the public needs to be served by social
legislation”); see also Lingle v. Chevron U. S. A., Inc., 544
U. S. __ (2005). Likewise, we recognized our inability to
evaluate whether, in a given case, eminent domain is a
necessary means by which to pursue the legislature’s
ends. Midkiff, supra, at 242; Berman, supra, at 103.
Yet for all the emphasis on deference, Berman and
Midkiff hewed to a bedrock principle without which our
public use jurisprudence would collapse: “A purely private
taking could not withstand the scrutiny of the public use
requirement; it would serve no legitimate purpose of
government and would thus be void.” Midkiff, 467 U. S.,
at 245; id., at 241 (“[T]he Court’s cases have repeatedly
stated that ‘one person’s property may not be taken for the
benefit of another private person without a justifying
public purpose, even though compensation be paid’ ” (quot-
ing Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Util. Corp., 300 U. S.
55, 80 (1937))); see also Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Ne-
braska, 164 U. S. 403, 417 (1896). To protect that princi-
ple, those decisions reserved “a role for courts to play in
reviewing a legislature’s judgment of what constitutes a
public use . . . [though] the Court in Berman made clear
that it is ‘an extremely narrow’ one.” Midkiff, supra, at
240 (quoting Berman, supra, at 32).
8 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
The Court’s holdings in Berman and Midkiff were true
to the principle underlying the Public Use Clause. In both
those cases, the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the
targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society—in
Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty
and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme
wealth. And in both cases, the relevant legislative body
had found that eliminating the existing property use was
necessary to remedy the harm. Berman, supra, at 28–29;
Midkiff, supra, at 232. Thus a public purpose was realized
when the harmful use was eliminated. Because each
taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter
that the property was turned over to private use. Here, in
contrast, New London does not claim that Susette Kelo’s
and Wilhelmina Dery’s well-maintained homes are the
source of any social harm. Indeed, it could not so claim
without adopting the absurd argument that any single-
family home that might be razed to make way for an
apartment building, or any church that might be replaced
with a retail store, or any small business that might be
more lucrative if it were instead part of a national fran-
chise, is inherently harmful to society and thus within the
government’s power to condemn.
In moving away from our decisions sanctioning the
condemnation of harmful property use, the Court today
significantly expands the meaning of public use. It holds
that the sovereign may take private property currently
put to ordinary private use, and give it over for new, ordi-
nary private use, so long as the new use is predicted to
generate some secondary benefit for the public—such as
increased tax revenue, more jobs, maybe even aesthetic
pleasure. But nearly any lawful use of real private prop-
erty can be said to generate some incidental benefit to the
public. Thus, if predicted (or even guaranteed) positive
side-effects are enough to render transfer from one private
party to another constitutional, then the words “for public
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 9
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
use” do not realistically exclude any takings, and thus do
not exert any constraint on the eminent domain power.
There is a sense in which this troubling result follows
from errant language in Berman and Midkiff. In discuss-
ing whether takings within a blighted neighborhood were
for a public use, Berman began by observing: “We deal, in
other words, with what traditionally has been known as
the police power.” 348 U. S., at 32. From there it declared
that “[o]nce the object is within the authority of Congress,
the right to realize it through the exercise of eminent
domain is clear.” Id., at 33. Following up, we said in
Midkiff that “[t]he ‘public use’ requirement is coterminous
with the scope of a sovereign’s police powers.” 467 U. S.,
at 240. This language was unnecessary to the specific
holdings of those decisions. Berman and Midkiff simply
did not put such language to the constitutional test, be-
cause the takings in those cases were within the police
power but also for “public use” for the reasons I have
described. The case before us now demonstrates why,
when deciding if a taking’s purpose is constitutional, the
police power and “public use” cannot always be equated.
The Court protests that it does not sanction the bare
transfer from A to B for B’s benefit. It suggests two limi-
tations on what can be taken after today’s decision. First,
it maintains a role for courts in ferreting out takings
whose sole purpose is to bestow a benefit on the private
transferee—without detailing how courts are to conduct
that complicated inquiry. Ante, at 7. For his part,
JUSTICE KENNEDY suggests that courts may divine illicit
purpose by a careful review of the record and the process
by which a legislature arrived at the decision to take—
without specifying what courts should look for in a case
with different facts, how they will know if they have found
it, and what to do if they do not. Ante, at 2–3 (concurring
opinion). Whatever the details of JUSTICE KENNEDY’s as-
yet-undisclosed test, it is difficult to envision anyone but
10 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
the “stupid staff[er]” failing it. See Lucas v. South Caro-
lina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1025–1026, n. 12
(1992). The trouble with economic development takings is
that private benefit and incidental public benefit are, by
definition, merged and mutually reinforcing. In this case,
for example, any boon for Pfizer or the plan’s developer is
difficult to disaggregate from the promised public gains in
taxes and jobs. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 275–277.
Even if there were a practical way to isolate the motives
behind a given taking, the gesture toward a purpose test is
theoretically flawed. If it is true that incidental public
benefits from new private use are enough to ensure the
“public purpose” in a taking, why should it matter, as far
as the Fifth Amendment is concerned, what inspired the
taking in the first place? How much the government does
or does not desire to benefit a favored private party has no
bearing on whether an economic development taking will
or will not generate secondary benefit for the public. And
whatever the reason for a given condemnation, the effect
is the same from the constitutional perspective—private
property is forcibly relinquished to new private ownership.
A second proposed limitation is implicit in the Court’s
opinion. The logic of today’s decision is that eminent
domain may only be used to upgrade—not downgrade—
property. At best this makes the Public Use Clause re-
dundant with the Due Process Clause, which already
prohibits irrational government action. See Lingle, 544
U. S. __. The Court rightfully admits, however, that the
judiciary cannot get bogged down in predictive judgments
about whether the public will actually be better off after a
property transfer. In any event, this constraint has no
realistic import. For who among us can say she already
makes the most productive or attractive possible use of
her property? The specter of condemnation hangs over all
property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing
any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shop-
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 11
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
ping mall, or any farm with a factory. Cf. Bugryn v. Bris-
tol, 63 Conn. App. 98, 774 A. 2d 1042 (2001) (taking the
homes and farm of four owners in their 70’s and 80’s and
giving it to an “industrial park”); 99 Cents Only Stores v.
Lancaster Redevelopment Authority, 237 F. Supp. 2d 1123
(CD Cal. 2001) (attempted taking of 99 Cents store to
replace with a Costco); Poletown Neighborhood Council v.
Detroit, 410 Mich. 616, 304 N. W. 2d 455 (1981) (taking a
working-class, immigrant community in Detroit and giv-
ing it to a General Motors assembly plant), overruled by
County of Wayne v. Hathcock, 471 Mich. 415, 684 N. W. 2d
765 (2004); Brief for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
as Amicus Curiae 4–11 (describing takings of religious
institutions’ properties); Institute for Justice, D. Berliner,
Public Power, Private Gain: A Five-Year, State-by-State
Report Examining the Abuse of Eminent Domain (2003)
(collecting accounts of economic development takings).
The Court also puts special emphasis on facts peculiar
to this case: The NLDC’s plan is the product of a relatively
careful deliberative process; it proposes to use eminent
domain for a multipart, integrated plan rather than for
isolated property transfer; it promises an array of inciden-
tal benefits (even aesthetic ones), not just increased tax
revenue; it comes on the heels of a legislative determina-
tion that New London is a depressed municipality. See,
e.g., ante, at 16 (“[A] one-to-one transfer of property, exe-
cuted outside the confines of an integrated development
plan, is not presented in this case”). JUSTICE KENNEDY,
too, takes great comfort in these facts. Ante, at 4 (concur-
ring opinion). But none has legal significance to blunt the
force of today’s holding. If legislative prognostications
about the secondary public benefits of a new use can le-
gitimate a taking, there is nothing in the Court’s rule or in
JUSTICE KENNEDY’s gloss on that rule to prohibit property
transfers generated with less care, that are less compre-
hensive, that happen to result from less elaborate process,
12 KELO v. NEW LONDON
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
whose only projected advantage is the incidence of higher
taxes, or that hope to transform an already prosperous city
into an even more prosperous one.
Finally, in a coda, the Court suggests that property
owners should turn to the States, who may or may not
choose to impose appropriate limits on economic develop-
ment takings. Ante, at 19. This is an abdication of our
responsibility. States play many important functions in
our system of dual sovereignty, but compensating for our
refusal to enforce properly the Federal Constitution (and a
provision meant to curtail state action, no less) is not
among them.
* * *
It was possible after Berman and Midkiff to imagine
unconstitutional transfers from A to B. Those decisions
endorsed government intervention when private property
use had veered to such an extreme that the public was
suffering as a consequence. Today nearly all real property
is susceptible to condemnation on the Court’s theory. In
the prescient words of a dissenter from the infamous
decision in Poletown, “[n]ow that we have authorized local
legislative bodies to decide that a different commercial or
industrial use of property will produce greater public
benefits than its present use, no homeowner’s, merchant’s
or manufacturer’s property, however productive or valu-
able to its owner, is immune from condemnation for the
benefit of other private interests that will put it to a
‘higher’ use.” 410 Mich., at 644–645, 304 N. W. 2d, at 464
(opinion of Fitzgerald, J.). This is why economic develop-
ment takings “seriously jeopardiz[e] the security of all
private property ownership.” Id., at 645, 304 N. W. 2d, at
465 (Ryan, J., dissenting).
Any property may now be taken for the benefit of an-
other private party, but the fallout from this decision will
not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13
O’CONNOR, J., dissenting
citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the
political process, including large corporations and devel-
opment firms. As for the victims, the government now has
license to transfer property from those with fewer re-
sources to those with more. The Founders cannot have
intended this perverse result. “[T]hat alone is a just gov-
ernment,” wrote James Madison, “which impartially se-
cures to every man, whatever is his own.” For the Na-
tional Gazette, Property, (Mar. 29, 1792), reprinted in 14
Papers of James Madison 266 (R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983).
I would hold that the takings in both Parcel 3 and Par-
cel 4A are unconstitutional, reverse the judgment of the
Supreme Court of Connecticut, and remand for further
proceedings.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
THOMAS, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–108
_________________
SUSETTE KELO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
CONNECTICUT
[June 23, 2005]
JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting.
Long ago, William Blackstone wrote that “the law of the
land . . . postpone[s] even public necessity to the sacred
and inviolable rights of private property.” 1 Commentar-
ies on the Laws of England 134–135 (1765) (hereinafter
Blackstone). The Framers embodied that principle in the
Constitution, allowing the government to take property
not for “public necessity,” but instead for “public use.”
Amdt. 5. Defying this understanding, the Court replaces
the Public Use Clause with a “‘[P]ublic [P]urpose’ ” Clause,
ante, at 9–10 (or perhaps the “Diverse and Always Evolving
Needs of Society” Clause, ante, at 8 (capitalization added)), a
restriction that is satisfied, the Court instructs, so long as
the purpose is “legitimate” and the means “not irrational,”
ante, at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted). This defer-
ential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against
all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose
stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased
tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the
Pfizer Corporation, is for a “public use.”
I cannot agree. If such “economic development” takings
are for a “public use,” any taking is, and the Court has
erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as
JUSTICE O’CONNOR powerfully argues in dissent. Ante, at
2 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
1–2, 8–13. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate
liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and
therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, how-
ever, the Court’s error runs deeper than this. Today’s
decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases con-
struing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity,
without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my
view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a
meaningful limit on the government’s eminent domain
power. Our cases have strayed from the Clause’s original
meaning, and I would reconsider them.
I
The Fifth Amendment provides:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in
the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in ac-
tual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall
any person be subject for the same offence to be twice
put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process, of law; nor shall private property be taken
for public use, without just compensation.” (Emphasis
added.)
It is the last of these liberties, the Takings Clause, that is
at issue in this case. In my view, it is “imperative that the
Court maintain absolute fidelity to” the Clause’s express
limit on the power of the government over the individual,
no less than with every other liberty expressly enumer-
ated in the Fifth Amendment or the Bill of Rights more
generally. Shepard v. United States, 544 U. S. ___, ___
(2005) (slip op., at 2) (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and
concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Though one component of the protection provided by the
Takings Clause is that the government can take private
property only if it provides “just compensation” for the
taking, the Takings Clause also prohibits the government
from taking property except “for public use.” Were it
otherwise, the Takings Clause would either be meaning-
less or empty. If the Public Use Clause served no function
other than to state that the government may take prop-
erty through its eminent domain power—for public or
private uses—then it would be surplusage. See ante, at 3–
4 (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting); see also Marbury v. Madi-
son, 1 Cranch 137, 174 (1803) (“It cannot be presumed
that any clause in the constitution is intended to be with-
out effect”); Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 151
(1926). Alternatively, the Clause could distinguish those
takings that require compensation from those that do not.
That interpretation, however, “would permit private prop-
erty to be taken or appropriated for private use without
any compensation whatever.” Cole v. La Grange, 113 U. S.
1, 8 (1885) (interpreting same language in the Missouri
Public Use Clause). In other words, the Clause would
require the government to compensate for takings done
“for public use,” leaving it free to take property for purely
private uses without the payment of compensation. This
would contradict a bedrock principle well established by
the time of the founding: that all takings required the
payment of compensation. 1 Blackstone 135; 2 J. Kent,
Commentaries on American Law 275 (1827) (hereinafter
Kent); J. Madison, for the National Property Gazette,
(Mar. 27, 1792), in 14 Papers of James Madison 266, 267
(R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983) (arguing that no property
“shall be taken directly even for public use without indem-
nification to the owner”).1 The Public Use Clause, like the
——————
1 Some state constitutions at the time of the founding lacked just
compensation clauses and took property even without providing com-
4 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Just Compensation Clause, is therefore an express limit
on the government’s power of eminent domain.
The most natural reading of the Clause is that it allows
the government to take property only if the government
owns, or the public has a legal right to use, the property,
as opposed to taking it for any public purpose or necessity
whatsoever. At the time of the founding, dictionaries
primarily defined the noun “use” as “[t]he act of employing
any thing to any purpose.” 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of
the English Language 2194 (4th ed. 1773) (hereinafter
Johnson). The term “use,” moreover, “is from the Latin
utor, which means ‘to use, make use of, avail one’s self of,
employ, apply, enjoy, etc.” J. Lewis, Law of Eminent
Domain §165, p. 224, n. 4 (1888) (hereinafter Lewis).
When the government takes property and gives it to a
private individual, and the public has no right to use the
property, it strains language to say that the public is
“employing” the property, regardless of the incidental
benefits that might accrue to the public from the private
use. The term “public use,” then, means that either the
government or its citizens as a whole must actually “em-
ploy” the taken property. See id., at 223 (reviewing found-
ing-era dictionaries).
Granted, another sense of the word “use” was broader in
meaning, extending to “[c]onvenience” or “help,” or
“[q]ualities that make a thing proper for any purpose.” 2
Johnson 2194. Nevertheless, read in context, the term
“public use” possesses the narrower meaning. Elsewhere,
the Constitution twice employs the word “use,” both times
in its narrower sense. Claeys, Public-Use Limitations and
Natural Property Rights, 2004 Mich. St. L. Rev. 877, 897
——————
pensation. See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003,
1056–1057 (1992) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). The Framers of the Fifth
Amendment apparently disagreed, for they expressly prohibited uncom-
pensated takings, and the Fifth Amendment was not incorporated against
the States until much later. See id., at 1028, n. 15.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5
THOMAS, J., dissenting
(hereinafter Public Use Limitations). Article 1, §10 pro-
vides that “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,” meaning the Treasury
itself will control the taxes, not use it to any beneficial
end. And Article I, §8 grants Congress power “[t]o raise
and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to
that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” Here
again, “use” means “employed to raise and support Ar-
mies,” not anything directed to achieving any military end.
The same word in the Public Use Clause should be inter-
preted to have the same meaning.
Tellingly, the phrase “public use” contrasts with the
very different phrase “general Welfare” used elsewhere in
the Constitution. See ibid. (“Congress shall have Power
To . . . provide for the common Defence and general Wel-
fare of the United States”); preamble (Constitution estab-
lished “to promote the general Welfare”). The Framers
would have used some such broader term if they had
meant the Public Use Clause to have a similarly sweeping
scope. Other founding-era documents made the contrast
between these two usages still more explicit. See Sales,
Classical Republicanism and the Fifth Amendment’s
“Public Use” Requirement, 49 Duke L. J. 339, 368 (2000)
(hereinafter Sales) (noting contrast between, on the one
hand, the term “public use” used by 6 of the first 13 States
and, on the other, the terms “public exigencies” employed
in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights and the Northwest
Ordinance, and the term “public necessity” used in the
Vermont Constitution of 1786). The Constitution’s text, in
short, suggests that the Takings Clause authorizes the
taking of property only if the public has a right to employ
it, not if the public realizes any conceivable benefit from
the taking.
The Constitution’s common-law background reinforces
this understanding. The common law provided an express
6 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
method of eliminating uses of land that adversely im-
pacted the public welfare: nuisance law. Blackstone and
Kent, for instance, both carefully distinguished the law of
nuisance from the power of eminent domain. Compare 1
Blackstone 135 (noting government’s power to take private
property with compensation), with 3 id., at 216 (noting
action to remedy “public . . .nuisances, which affect the
public and are an annoyance to all the king’s subjects”);
see also 2 Kent 274–276 (distinguishing the two). Black-
stone rejected the idea that private property could be
taken solely for purposes of any public benefit. “So great
. . . is the regard of the law for private property,” he ex-
plained, “that it will not authorize the least violation of it;
no, not even for the general good of the whole community.”
1 Blackstone 135. He continued: “If a new road . . . were
to be made through the grounds of a private person, it
might perhaps be extensively beneficial to the public; but
the law permits no man, or set of men, to do this without
the consent of the owner of the land.” Ibid. Only “by
giving [the landowner] full indemnification” could the
government take property, and even then “[t]he public
[was] now considered as an individual, treating with an
individual for an exchange.” Ibid. When the public took
property, in other words, it took it as an individual buying
property from another typically would: for one’s own use.
The Public Use Clause, in short, embodied the Framers’
understanding that property is a natural, fundamental
right, prohibiting the government from “tak[ing] property
from A. and giv[ing] it to B.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386,
388 (1798); see also Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627, 658
(1829); Vanhorne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 311 (CC
Pa. 1795).
The public purpose interpretation of the Public Use
Clause also unnecessarily duplicates a similar inquiry
required by the Necessary and Proper Clause. The Tak-
ings Clause is a prohibition, not a grant of power: The
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Constitution does not expressly grant the Federal Gov-
ernment the power to take property for any public purpose
whatsoever. Instead, the Government may take property
only when necessary and proper to the exercise of an
expressly enumerated power. See Kohl v. United States,
91 U. S. 367, 371–372 (1876) (noting Federal Govern-
ment’s power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to
take property “needed for forts, armories, and arsenals, for
navy-yards and light-houses, for custom-houses, post-
offices, and court-houses, and for other public uses”). For
a law to be within the Necessary and Proper Clause, as I
have elsewhere explained, it must bear an “obvious, sim-
ple, and direct relation” to an exercise of Congress’ enu-
merated powers, Sabri v. United States, 541 U. S. 600, 613
(2004) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment), and it must
not “subvert basic principles of” constitutional design,
Gonzales v. Raich, ante, at __ (THOMAS, J., dissenting). In
other words, a taking is permissible under the Necessary
and Proper Clause only if it serves a valid public purpose.
Interpreting the Public Use Clause likewise to limit the
government to take property only for sufficiently public
purposes replicates this inquiry. If this is all the Clause
means, it is, once again, surplusage. See supra, at 3. The
Clause is thus most naturally read to concern whether the
property is used by the public or the government, not
whether the purpose of the taking is legitimately public.
II
Early American eminent domain practice largely bears
out this understanding of the Public Use Clause. This
practice concerns state limits on eminent domain power,
not the Fifth Amendment, since it was not until the late
19th century that the Federal Government began to use
the power of eminent domain, and since the Takings
Clause did not even arguably limit state power until after
the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Note, The
8 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Public Use Limitation on Eminent Domain: An Advance
Requiem, 58 Yale L. J. 599, 599–600, and nn. 3–4 (1949);
Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243,
250–251 (1833) (holding the Takings Clause inapplicable
to the States of its own force). Nevertheless, several early
state constitutions at the time of the founding likewise
limited the power of eminent domain to “public uses.” See
Sales 367–369, and n. 137 (emphasis deleted). Their
practices therefore shed light on the original meaning of
the same words contained in the Public Use Clause.
States employed the eminent domain power to provide
quintessentially public goods, such as public roads, toll
roads, ferries, canals, railroads, and public parks. Lewis
§§166, 168–171, 175, at 227–228, 234–241, 243. Though
use of the eminent domain power was sparse at the time of
the founding, many States did have so-called Mill Acts,
which authorized the owners of grist mills operated by
water power to flood upstream lands with the payment of
compensation to the upstream landowner. See, e.g., id.,
§178, at 245–246; Head v. Amoskeag Mfg. Co., 113 U. S. 9,
16–19, and n. (1885). Those early grist mills “were regu-
lated by law and compelled to serve the public for a stipu-
lated toll and in regular order,” and therefore were actu-
ally used by the public. Lewis §178, at 246, and n. 3; see
also Head, supra, at 18–19. They were common carriers—
quasi-public entities. These were “public uses” in the
fullest sense of the word, because the public could legally
use and benefit from them equally. See Public Use Limi-
tations 903 (common-carrier status traditionally afforded
to “private beneficiaries of a state franchise or another
form of state monopoly, or to companies that operated in
conditions of natural monopoly”).
To be sure, some early state legislatures tested the
limits of their state-law eminent domain power. Some
States enacted statutes allowing the taking of property for
the purpose of building private roads. See Lewis §167, at
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 9
THOMAS, J., dissenting
230. These statutes were mixed; some required the pri-
vate landowner to keep the road open to the public, and
others did not. See id., §167, at 230–234. Later in the
19th century, moreover, the Mill Acts were employed to
grant rights to private manufacturing plants, in addition
to grist mills that had common-carrier duties. See, e.g., M.
Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law 1780–
1860, pp. 51–52 (1977).
These early uses of the eminent domain power are often
cited as evidence for the broad “public purpose” interpreta-
tion of the Public Use Clause, see, e.g., ante, at 8, n. 8
(majority opinion); Brief for Respondents 30; Brief for
American Planning Assn. et al. as Amici Curiae at 6–7,
but in fact the constitutionality of these exercises of emi-
nent domain power under state public use restrictions was
a hotly contested question in state courts throughout the
19th and into the 20th century. Some courts construed
those clauses to authorize takings for public purposes, but
others adhered to the natural meaning of “public use.”2 As
——————
2 Compare ante, at 8, and n. 8 (majority opinion) (noting that some state
courts upheld the validity of applying the Mill Acts to private purposes
and arguing that the “ ‘use by the public’ test” “eroded over time”), with,
e.g., Ryerson v. Brown, 35 Mich. 333, 338–339 (1877) (holding it “essential”
to the constitutionality of a Mill Act “that the statute should require the
use to be public in fact; in other words, that it should contain provisions
entitling the public to accommodations”); Gaylord v. Sanitary Dist. of
Chicago, 204 Ill. 576, 581–584, 68 N. E. 522, 524 (1903) (same); Tyler v.
Beacher, 44 Vt. 648, 652–656 (1871) (same); Sadler v. Langham, 34 Ala.
311, 332–334 (1859) (striking down taking for purely private road and
grist mill); Varner v. Martin, 21 W. Va. 534, 546–548, 556–557, 566–567
(1883) (grist mill and private road had to be open to public for them to
constitute public use); Harding v. Goodlett, 3 Yerg. 41, 53 (1832); Jacobs v.
Clearview Water Supply Co., 220 Pa. 388, 393–395, 69 A. 870, 872 (1908)
(endorsing actual public use standard); Minnesota Canal & Power Co. v.
Koochiching Co., 97 Minn. 429, 449–451, 107 N. W. 405, 413 (1906)
(same); Chesapeake Stone Co. v. Moreland, 126 Ky. 656, 663–667, 104
S. W. 762, 765 (Ct. App. 1907) (same); Note, Public Use in Eminent
Domain, 21 N. Y. U. L. Q. Rev. 285, 286, and n. 11 (1946) (calling the
10 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
noted above, the earliest Mill Acts were applied to entities
with duties to remain open to the public, and their later
extension is not deeply probative of whether that subse-
quent practice is consistent with the original meaning of
the Public Use Clause. See McIntyre v. Ohio Elections
Comm’n, 514 U. S. 334, 370 (1995) (THOMAS, J., concur-
ring in judgment). At the time of the founding, “[b]usiness
corporations were only beginning to upset the old corpo-
rate model, in which the raison d’être of chartered associa-
tions was their service to the public,” Horwitz, supra, at
49–50, so it was natural to those who framed the first
Public Use Clauses to think of mills as inherently public
entities. The disagreement among state courts, and state
legislatures’ attempts to circumvent public use limits on
their eminent domain power, cannot obscure that the
Public Use Clause is most naturally read to authorize
takings for public use only if the government or the public
actually uses the taken property.
III
Our current Public Use Clause jurisprudence, as the
Court notes, has rejected this natural reading of the
Clause. Ante, at 8–10. The Court adopted its modern
reading blindly, with little discussion of the Clause’s
history and original meaning, in two distinct lines of cases:
first, in cases adopting the “public purpose” interpretation
of the Clause, and second, in cases deferring to legisla-
tures’ judgments regarding what constitutes a valid public
purpose. Those questionable cases converged in the
boundlessly broad and deferential conception of “public
use” adopted by this Court in Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S.
26 (1954), and Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467
U. S. 229 (1984), cases that take center stage in the
Court’s opinion. See ante, 10–12. The weakness of those
——————
actual public use standard the “majority view” and citing other cases).
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 11
THOMAS, J., dissenting
two lines of cases, and consequently Berman and Midkiff,
fatally undermines the doctrinal foundations of the
Court’s decision. Today’s questionable application of these
cases is further proof that the “public purpose” standard is
not susceptible of principled application. This Court’s
reliance by rote on this standard is ill advised and should
be reconsidered.
A
As the Court notes, the “public purpose” interpretation
of the Public Use Clause stems from Fallbrook Irrigation
Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 161–162 (1896). Ante, at
11. The issue in Bradley was whether a condemnation for
purposes of constructing an irrigation ditch was for a
public use. 164 U. S., at 161. This was a public use, Jus-
tice Peckham declared for the Court, because “[t]o irrigate
and thus to bring into possible cultivation these large
masses of otherwise worthless lands would seem to be a
public purpose and a matter of public interest, not con-
fined to landowners, or even to any one section of the
State.” Ibid. That broad statement was dictum, for the
law under review also provided that “[a]ll landowners in
the district have the right to a proportionate share of the
water.” Id., at 162. Thus, the “public” did have the right
to use the irrigation ditch because all similarly situated
members of the public—those who owned lands irrigated
by the ditch–had a right to use it. The Court cited no
authority for its dictum, and did not discuss either the
Public Use Clause’s original meaning or the numerous
authorities that had adopted the “actual use” test (though
it at least acknowledged the conflict of authority in state
courts, see id., at 158; supra, at 9, and n. 2). Instead, the
Court reasoned that “[t]he use must be regarded as a
public use, or else it would seem to follow that no general
scheme of irrigation can be formed or carried into effect.”
Bradley, supra, at 160–161. This is no statement of con-
12 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
stitutional principle: Whatever the utility of irrigation
districts or the merits of the Court’s view that another
rule would be “impractical given the diverse and always
evolving needs of society,” ante, at 8, the Constitution does
not embody those policy preferences any more than it
“enact[s] Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.” Lochner v.
New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting);
but see id., at 58–62 (Peckham, J., for the Court).
This Court’s cases followed Bradley’s test with little
analysis. In Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361 (1905)
(Peckham, J., for the Court), this Court relied on little
more than a citation to Bradley in upholding another
condemnation for the purpose of laying an irrigation ditch.
198 U. S., at 369–370. As in Bradley, use of the “public
purpose” test was unnecessary to the result the Court
reached. The government condemned the irrigation ditch
for the purpose of ensuring access to water in which
“[o]ther land owners adjoining the defendant in error . . .
might share,” 198 U. S., at 370, and therefore Clark also
involved a condemnation for the purpose of ensuring
access to a resource to which similarly situated members
of the public had a legal right of access. Likewise, in
Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527
(1906), the Court upheld a condemnation establishing an
aerial right-of-way for a bucket line operated by a mining
company, relying on little more than Clark, see Strickley,
supra, at 531. This case, too, could have been disposed of
on the narrower ground that “the plaintiff [was] a carrier
for itself and others,” 200 U. S., at 531–532, and therefore
that the bucket line was legally open to the public. In-
stead, the Court unnecessarily rested its decision on the
“inadequacy of use by the general public as a universal
test.” Id., at 531. This Court’s cases quickly incorporated
the public purpose standard set forth in Clark and Strick-
ley by barren citation. See, e.g., Rindge Co. v. County of
Los Angeles, 262 U. S. 700, 707 (1923); Block v. Hirsh, 256
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13
THOMAS, J., dissenting
U. S. 135, 155 (1921); Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck
Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240 U. S. 30, 32
(1916); O’Neill v. Leamer, 239 U. S. 244, 253 (1915).
B
A second line of this Court’s cases also deviated from the
Public Use Clause’s original meaning by allowing legisla-
tures to define the scope of valid “public uses.” United
States v. Gettysburg Electric R. Co., 160 U. S. 668 (1896),
involved the question whether Congress’ decision to con-
demn certain private land for the purpose of building
battlefield memorials at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was
for a public use. Id., at 679–680. Since the Federal Gov-
ernment was to use the lands in question, id., at 682,
there is no doubt that it was a public use under any rea-
sonable standard. Nonetheless, the Court, speaking
through Justice Peckham, declared that “when the legisla-
ture has declared the use or purpose to be a public one, its
judgment will be respected by the courts, unless the use be
palpably without reasonable foundation.” Id., at 680. As
it had with the “public purpose” dictum in Bradley, supra,
the Court quickly incorporated this dictum into its Public
Use Clause cases with little discussion. See, e.g., United
States ex rel. TVA v. Welch, 327 U. S. 546, 552 (1946); Old
Dominion Land Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 55, 66
(1925).
There is no justification, however, for affording almost
insurmountable deference to legislative conclusions that a
use serves a “public use.” To begin with, a court owes no
deference to a legislature’s judgment concerning the quin-
tessentially legal question of whether the government
owns, or the public has a legal right to use, the taken
property. Even under the “public purpose” interpretation,
moreover, it is most implausible that the Framers in-
tended to defer to legislatures as to what satisfies the
Public Use Clause, uniquely among all the express provi-
14 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
sions of the Bill of Rights. We would not defer to a legisla-
ture’s determination of the various circumstances that
establish, for example, when a search of a home would be
reasonable, see, e.g., Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573,
589–590 (1980), or when a convicted double-murderer may
be shackled during a sentencing proceeding without on-
the-record findings, see Deck v. Missouri, 544 U. S. ___
(2005), or when state law creates a property interest pro-
tected by the Due Process Clause, see, e.g., Castle Rock v.
Gonzales, post, at __; Board of Regents of State Colleges v.
Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 576 (1972); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397
U. S. 254, 262–263 (1970).
Still worse, it is backwards to adopt a searching stan-
dard of constitutional review for nontraditional property
interests, such as welfare benefits, see, e.g., Goldberg,
supra, while deferring to the legislature’s determination
as to what constitutes a public use when it exercises the
power of eminent domain, and thereby invades individu-
als’ traditional rights in real property. The Court has
elsewhere recognized “the overriding respect for the sanc-
tity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions
since the origins of the Republic,” Payton, supra, at 601,
when the issue is only whether the government may
search a home. Yet today the Court tells us that we are
not to “second-guess the City’s considered judgments,”
ante, at 18, when the issue is, instead, whether the gov-
ernment may take the infinitely more intrusive step of
tearing down petitioners’ homes. Something has gone
seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the
Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the govern-
ment in their homes, the homes themselves are not.
Once one accepts, as the Court at least nominally does,
ante, at 6, that the Public Use Clause is a limit on the
eminent domain power of the Federal Government and the
States, there is no justification for the almost complete
deference it grants to legislatures as to what satisfies it.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 15
THOMAS, J., dissenting
C
These two misguided lines of precedent converged in
Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954), and Hawaii Housing
Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984). Relying on those
lines of cases, the Court in Berman and Midkiff upheld
condemnations for the purposes of slum clearance and
land redistribution, respectively. “Subject to specific
constitutional limitations,” Berman proclaimed, “when the
legislature has spoken, the public interest has been de-
clared in terms well-nigh conclusive. In such cases the
legislature, not the judiciary, is the main guardian of the
public needs to be served by social legislation.” 348 U. S.,
at 32. That reasoning was question begging, since the
question to be decided was whether the “specific constitu-
tional limitation” of the Public Use Clause prevented the
taking of the appellant’s (concededly “nonblighted”) de-
partment store. Id., at 31, 34. Berman also appeared to
reason that any exercise by Congress of an enumerated
power (in this case, its plenary power over the District of
Columbia) was per se a “public use” under the Fifth
Amendment. Id., at 33. But the very point of the Public
Use Clause is to limit that power. See supra, at 3–4.
More fundamentally, Berman and Midkiff erred by
equating the eminent domain power with the police power
of States. See Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 240 (“The ‘public use’
requirement is . . . coterminous with the scope of a sover-
eign’s police powers”); Berman, 348 U. S., at 32. Tradi-
tional uses of that regulatory power, such as the power to
abate a nuisance, required no compensation whatsoever,
see Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 668–669 (1887), in
sharp contrast to the takings power, which has always
required compensation, see supra, at 3, and n. 1. The
question whether the State can take property using the
power of eminent domain is therefore distinct from the
question whether it can regulate property pursuant to the
police power. See, e.g., Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal
16 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1014 (1992); Mugler, supra, at
668–669. In Berman, for example, if the slums at issue
were truly “blighted,” then state nuisance law, see, e.g.,
supra, at 5–6; Lucas, supra, at 1029, not the power of
eminent domain, would provide the appropriate remedy.
To construe the Public Use Clause to overlap with the
States’ police power conflates these two categories.3
The “public purpose” test applied by Berman and Mid-
kiff also cannot be applied in principled manner. “When
we depart from the natural import of the term ‘public use,’
and substitute for the simple idea of a public possession
and occupation, that of public utility, public interest,
common benefit, general advantage or convenience . . . we
are afloat without any certain principle to guide us.”
Bloodgood v. Mohawk & Hudson R. Co., 18 Wend. 9, 60–
61 (NY 1837) (opinion of Tracy, Sen.). Once one permits
takings for public purposes in addition to public uses, no
coherent principle limits what could constitute a valid
public use–at least, none beyond JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s
(entirely proper) appeal to the text of the Constitution
itself. See ante, at 1–2, 8–13 (dissenting opinion). I share
the Court’s skepticism about a public use standard that
requires courts to second-guess the policy wisdom of public
works projects. Ante, at 16–19. The “public purpose”
standard this Court has adopted, however, demands the
——————
3 Some States also promoted the alienability of property by abolishing
the feudal “quit rent” system, i.e., long-term leases under which the
proprietor reserved to himself the right to perpetual payment of rents
from his tenant. See Vance, The Quest for Tenure in the United States,
33 Yale L. J. 248, 256–257, 260–263 (1923). In Hawaii Housing Authority
v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984), the Court cited those state policies
favoring the alienability of land as evidence that the government’s emi-
nent domain power was similarly expansive, see id., at 241–242, and n. 5.
But they were uses of the States’ regulatory power, not the takings power,
and therefore were irrelevant to the issue in Midkiff. This mismatch
underscores the error of conflating a State’s regulatory power with its
taking power.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 17
THOMAS, J., dissenting
use of such judgment, for the Court concedes that the
Public Use Clause would forbid a purely private taking.
Ante, at 7–8. It is difficult to imagine how a court could
find that a taking was purely private except by determin-
ing that the taking did not, in fact, rationally advance the
public interest. Cf. ante, at 9–10 (O’CONNOR, J., dissent-
ing) (noting the complicated inquiry the Court’s test re-
quires). The Court is therefore wrong to criticize the
“actual use” test as “difficult to administer.” Ante, at 8. It
is far easier to analyze whether the government owns or
the public has a legal right to use the taken property than
to ask whether the taking has a “purely private purpose”–
unless the Court means to eliminate public use scrutiny of
takings entirely. Ante, at 7–8, 16–17. Obliterating a
provision of the Constitution, of course, guarantees that it
will not be misapplied.
For all these reasons, I would revisit our Public Use
Clause cases and consider returning to the original mean-
ing of the Public Use Clause: that the government may
take property only if it actually uses or gives the public a
legal right to use the property.
IV
The consequences of today’s decision are not difficult to
predict, and promise to be harmful. So-called “urban
renewal” programs provide some compensation for the
properties they take, but no compensation is possible for
the subjective value of these lands to the individuals
displaced and the indignity inflicted by uprooting them
from their homes. Allowing the government to take prop-
erty solely for public purposes is bad enough, but extend-
ing the concept of public purpose to encompass any eco-
nomically beneficial goal guarantees that these losses will
fall disproportionately on poor communities. Those com-
munities are not only systematically less likely to put
their lands to the highest and best social use, but are also
18 KELO v. NEW LONDON
THOMAS, J., dissenting
the least politically powerful. If ever there were justifica-
tion for intrusive judicial review of constitutional provi-
sions that protect “discrete and insular minorities,” United
States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, n. 4
(1938), surely that principle would apply with great force
to the powerless groups and individuals the Public Use
Clause protects. The deferential standard this Court has
adopted for the Public Use Clause is therefore deeply
perverse. It encourages “those citizens with dis-
proportionate influence and power in the political pro-
cess, including large corporations and development
firms” to victimize the weak. Ante, at 11 (O’CONNOR, J.,
dissenting).
Those incentives have made the legacy of this Court’s
“public purpose” test an unhappy one. In the 1950’s, no
doubt emboldened in part by the expansive understanding
of “public use” this Court adopted in Berman, cities
“rushed to draw plans” for downtown development. B.
Frieden & L. Sagalayn, Downtown, Inc. How America
Rebuilds Cities 17 (1989). “Of all the families displaced by
urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of
those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these
families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites
had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing,
which, however, was seldom available to them.” Id., at 28.
Public works projects in the 1950’s and 1960’s destroyed
predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minne-
sota, and Baltimore, Maryland. Id., at 28–29. In 1981,
urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely
“lower-income and elderly” Poletown neighborhood for the
benefit of the General Motors Corporation. J. Wylie,
Poletown: Community Betrayed 58 (1989). Urban renewal
projects have long been associated with the displacement
of blacks; “[i]n cities across the country, urban renewal
came to be known as ‘Negro removal.’ ” Pritchett, The
“Public Menace” of Blight: Urban Renewal and the Private
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 19
THOMAS, J., dissenting
Uses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47
(2003). Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly re-
moved from their homes by the “slum-clearance” project
upheld by this Court in Berman were black. 348 U. S., at
30. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the
Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects.
* * *
The Court relies almost exclusively on this Court’s prior
cases to derive today’s far-reaching, and dangerous, result.
See ante, at 8–12. But the principles this Court should
employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use
Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham’s high opinion of
reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a
clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned
cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure
of our founding document, we should not hesitate to re-
solve the tension in favor of the Constitution’s original
meaning. For the reasons I have given, and for the rea-
sons given in JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s dissent, the conflict of
principle raised by this boundless use of the eminent
domain power should be resolved in petitioners’ favor. I
would reverse the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme
Court.