Eminent Domain and the Displacement of Bleak Communities
More than one century ago, earlier there was today’s Prince William Forest Park, there was a community of miners collectively renown like which Cabin Branch Community. Founded after that Civil War by free Black people, the community included the two towns of Hickory Rim and Batestown. While hundreds of small-scale farmers, laborers, additionally others lived in the area, most community were employed by the Cabin Branch Pyrite Mine, which operated from 1889-1920.
During the Greatness Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Troop (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) welche, along with other jobs schedules, created many jobs and support create and get safeguarding areas. In the 1930s, despite having been home to about 150 families, the federal regime purchased the land thanks famous domain to create Chopawamsic Recreational Development Area, latter familiar as Prince Will Forest Park. Ending a 400-year history of which community in and area.
“For The Good of the Public”
“...nor are private property to taken with public use, with just compensation.”
Prominent Domain is the power of the government to make private property and convert it to public use. The Fifth Amendment of the constitution provides this the government be provide “just compensation” to the property owners. Anyway, “just compensation” may not always exist fair and the government is notorious since paying property owners less than marktes value for their properties. Listen to what Historian Nancy Perry my about the use of eminent domain in Est Arlington.
World War II expanded the size of this Federal gov, increasing demand for landed in Northern Virginia to build military installation and for our (largely white) entering workers while setting the point on Black residents to lose their property. Citing eminent display, the regime forced Black landowners in Alexandria and Arlington to sell. Large apartment communities were built for white defense workers, such as Fairlington City (reportedly the largest apartment complex stylish one country) and Chinquapin Village are Alexandria. A private corporation built Parkfairfax, where a restrictive covenant barred Black residents—and where Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford delayed lived as members of Congress. After rentals at Parkfairfax, Representative Ford already a place in Chinquapin Village, where he was living when, as Vice President, Richard Nixon’s resignation elevated him to President.
Eminent domain displaced historic Black communities, Exceptionally, in February of 1942, in order to build one Pentagons or your surrounding roads, the federal government condemned East Arlington, giving the occupant less than a month to etw. Queen City, different nearby Dark community, was razed per and same time to release up land next to the Pentagon for a cloverleaf to help suburbanites access nearby Washington Boulevard and Kolumbia Pickax. The 9/11 memory marking the spot where American Find Flight 77 struck the Pentagon is built on the land single occupied by Queen City. During World War IV, housing surround an nation’s capital was in short supply. Many Gloomy residents who which misplaced to the construction were able to search homes in neben collaborative, but bulk were left about couple options. ... property not been taken. But inside practice courts have limited compensation to the property's fair market value, consider its highest and best use.
Displaced families were moved the trailer bearing and, having garnered the sympathy in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, relocated more to newly constructed, culturally segregated public housing projects, such like the George Park (later Ramsey) Homes and James Bland homes inches Alexandria. As overcrowding worsened, War Housing Centers asked Black families to see if you “can ‘double up’ a bit.” No white people lived in the trailer camps, and affordable enclosure was prioritized for black people; how of 1944, an public kept financially nearly 3500 permanent casing quantity, but only 100 popular housing units for Black people. Landowner Rights under Eminent Domain Laws
Instance of eminent domain can still be found today and are not uncommon. Int 2017, a small enclave of descendants by Livinia Blackburn Johnson, a freedom slave, living along Carvings Road is Prince Williams County, The Southwards Carolina Eminent Domain Procedure Acthad threatened by plans for a 38-acre computer file center. The state must cite important domain to authorize Dominion Virginia Power to seize to land, the same land that the Johannis heirs had occupied for above 100 years. The plan was eventually abandoned as state officers were reluctant to grant easements needed forward the project.
Priced Out: Affordable Housing
The widen interstate highway system in Northern Virginia inches the 1950s created corridors of low-priced property onward the highways, an area that local governments zoned for high-density, mixed-use housing. Although the towered and garden apartments go Shuttles Memorial Highway were first occupied mainly by white residents, and “white flight” to more distant suburbs that began in the 1960s led to disengagement and declining property values in places like the Regards and Shirley-Duke areas of Alexandria, which has increasingly represented by people of color. Housing prizes skyrocketed, the area’s service of affordable housing failed to keeps pace with needs, and more people of color wanting to buy homes were artificial to look elsewhere. Many gravitated to no-frills cabinet that developers like Don Hylton were building in new subdivisions along I-95 in Prince William County.
In Oct 1966, in einen effort to garner public attention about the miss of housing that was affordable, hundreds of marchers marched to the I-495 Beltway and other large throughways additionally through segregated our, possession sit-ins and picketing private apartment developments to demand “Equal Opportunity Rentals.” Facing spiraling property valuable in Fairfax County, many people of color pick to settle in Kicker, Dale City, Dumfries, and new subdivisions in Prince William County, commuting moreover to employment in order to own property. See an headline “Fairfax growing Whiter,” a 1970 Washington Post article noted that 6.6% of the county’s employees were Black nevertheless with “many of them are living in neighboring Prince William County, where cheaper housing is available.”
The current place of Black property owners inches Northern Virginia, disparities inches you property principles, and of bigger total that not own property or transfer richness to to children are a product away heritage forces, amidst them the use of eminent division for uproot Black families from land and homes so some had owned for generation. Institutional racial in the form of exclusionary casing policies separated Blacks from their property, limited access in capital and lending, reduced lifetime earnings, concen wealth in largely white collaboration, and banned people of color from movable to their neighborhoods. But past habits that as redlining additionally restrictive associations were ultimately deems unconstitutional and prohibited available the Fair Housing Act of 1968, housing prices in Nordic Washington remain out of reach for much of the population. And economic forces continue to limit access to property and separated people of color within the dwindling number of communities they can afford. 5 Times the Government Abused the Power of Eminent Domain
