Pros And Cons Of Eminent Domain

Eminent Domain is a legal act in which the government can purchase private property without the consent of the land owner if the government declares it is to meet a public need. Usually the government used this power to build road, urban renewal or public works projects. The government’s ability to use eminent domain comes from exercising their police power from the Fifth Amendment. The U.S. Constitution requires the government to provide compensation to the owner when their private property is taken. Eminent Domain has been a challenging area for the courts. State governments derive their power of Eminent Domain from their state constitutions.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s was the president who created the infrastructure project called the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was supposed to be a program that would help Americans recover from the Great Depression by providing jobs, it would also help control flooding, and provide more waterways for navigation. However, it probably flooded more land that it protected and the waterways created for navigation were …show more content…
The controversy begins with the Tellico project flooding some of the best farmland in Tennessee and it also flooded historical Cherokee Indian sites. It has been estimated the 730,000 acres have been flooded. While farm owners received settlements the black tenant farmer did not receive any settlements. Next the Tennessee Valley Authority project used eminent domain to acquire over 150 miles of shoreline and then decided to auction off nearly 600 acres of expensive shoreline property and ended up in the hands of a land developer. Since this was completed out of the original intent of eminent domain, the Tennessee Valley Authority project caused the banning of sales of federal land for private residential