Political Science

In the book Little Pink Houses by Jeff Benedict one reads the story of Susette Kelo. Kelo, a single nurse had purchased a home in New London CT, in an area that was being looked at by the New London Development Corporation (NLDC) as the site for a new Pfizer Chemicals plant. Many of the homes in the area had already been taken over by the law of Eminent Domain that gives the right for state or federal governments to claim that land of private citizens if they play to use the land for a state or federal project. According to Benedict (2009), the NLDC received permission to go ahead with the project from state governor John Rowland who did so in order to avoid having to deal with city and local governments himself in order to develop the area. The city government allowed the project to continue because they felt it was in the best interests of the city, and in fact NLDC was led by a former member of the New London City council, Clare Guidiani. Pfizer became involved because they were looking for a new place to establish a chemical plant.

Kelo chose to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. She felt that in this particular case the state did not have a right to eminent domain. However in this case the courts decided that Kelo was not in the right and she eventually did lose her house. But, the Supreme Court Justices did emphasize that often Eminent Domain issues such as this particular case were often unfair to home and business owners because they did not share in the gain that the city, or the factory and businesses being built on their lands did. Often they did not receive fair market value for homes and lost out financially while the companies and towns that had taken over their property made millions.

Each party had a vested interest however eminent domain still won out in the end because as the law is written as long as the homeowners are offered some return on the value of their home, they really dont have a case. This book raised many critical questions about the rights of the individual citizen versus the public interest. Which one is greater Another issue raised by Benedict (2009) is the overall fairness or unfairness of Eminent Domain laws. These are answers without any easy questions. For instance the New London government had to balance the rights of its individual citizens with the rights of everyone in the city. Pfizer would have brought hundreds of jobs into an area that had been economically devastated by the loss of a major military base and several manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s.

Kelo is a sympathetic plaintiff though. Her story of how hard she fought to earn the money to buy her first home independent of her ex-husband, of the obstacles she faced in life is touching. She makes her case admirably, and her story makes it clear that one cannot judge the worth of a home based on money alone. People have invested things such as hopes and dreams and memories in a home that cannot be granted a monetary value. Kelos story makes it clear that when all of these aspects of home ownership come into play that Eminent Domain is unfair and cruel.

Benedicts (2009) book does not go into great detail in terms of the legalities of the case. It focuses on Kelos story rather than on the legal issues surrounding the case. While Benedict (2009) does not go into depth in terms of the legal issues surrounding the case, he does discuss it in enough detail the average reader can understand what is truly occurring in the case.

Overall I liked this book. It was easy to read and Benedict (2009) gives just enough detail to give an idea of the case to the typical reader while still offering detailed enough descriptions that it is useful for officials in Public Administration. This book did have some deficiencies in that analysis of issues such as eminent domain is mainly very superficial and lack critical details of the case. This book would be very appropriate however when addressing the rights of individuals vs. the rights of the group with Public Administration officials and employees.

This book is more targeted at the secular reader than it is professionals in the fields of Law and Public Administration. However it gives professionals insights into how Eminent Domain can affect people, and how the average person on the street thinks about issues such as the right of towns and states to take over their private property and use it for profit that they will see none of.  This book is also effective in that it provides a general survey from a lay persons perspective on eminent domain.

The main issue with this book is the lack of depth to its arguments however for the most part can be attributed to the target audience for the book. It was more of an enjoyable read for me than an informative read, although, I did learn how eminent domain affects homeowners. This has at least increased my understanding of eminent domain from the perspective of those outside the legal and public administration fields. It can be concluded that in general this book was very good. It portrayed the characters in a realistic manner, and was fairly well written.