THOU ART CONDEMNED: HOW NEW JERSEY COURTS ARE SACRIFICING PRIVATE LANDOWNERS ON THE ALTAR OF EMINENT DOMAIN

New Jersey is home to six major cities: Jersey City, Trenton, Newark, Camden, Patterson and Atlantic City. Over the past 30 years, these once robust industrial and manufacturing centers have deteriorated into rusty poverty traps and unemployment enclaves. Abandoned factories and dormant, aging warehouses pollute their dreary landscapes and serve as a symbolic “unwelcome” mat to potential employers. Hazardous materials infect acres of urban land. New Jersey cities are infested with poverty, crime, drugs and poorly-performing public schools, such that private investors have little, if any, incentive to invest the resources required to improve housing stock and eradicate blight. Manufacturing jobs having gone the way of rotary phones, these cities searched earnestly for a way to reinvent themselves. View More