Today is something of a milestone day for No Force, No Fraud. Sometime yesterday, we had our 100,000th reader - in 434 days. This is the 279th post over that time... about a quarter of a million words. Many thanks to all those readers, and to City Pages/Babelogue for the forum and the good lead-ins.

  As a writer, nothing is more unpleasant for me than having to write about the abuse of someones rights. It depresses and discourages me, and I write with anger, which makes that day miserable for me. Yet, such articles demand to be written, because if we just lazily ignore abuse, it grows like an unchecked virus. If we look aside, thankful that it happened to someone else instead, it will, sooner or later, be directed at us too.

On the other hand, when I get a chance to write about positive results, it makes my day, and this is such an article.

The abuse of eminent domain, and other "planning tools" at the local government level has been such a virus, growing insidiously for several decades. Big, favored development projects have been displacing homes and small businesses in many of our neighborhoods, pushed through with claims of increased tax revenue, new jobs, and fancy new structures. "Planners" seek to force their view of how an area should be organized, rather than letting it happen naturally. The victims of such plans are usually unorganized, and their rights are quietly sacrificed in favor of something like a "comprehensive plan" for the city. Cities have been competing with each other with such developments, and trampling many people's lives in the process.

I believe that such controlled, forced planning is now on the run, thanks to citizen groups that are fighting back. The idea that a city's "public benefit" trumps the rights of individual citizens and even whole neighborhoods is being challenged, and defeated with regularity.

Wednesday night, I attended a meeting of the Edina City Council, in their grandiose new City Hall building. The issue that filled the chambers to overflowing centered around the neighborhood of 44th and France, in the Morningside area. Morningside has long been sort of the poor stepsister part of Edina, in rather sharp contrast to nearby Edina Five-O, just 6 blocks away. 44th and France was referred to several times by council members as "quaint", a euphemism for a sort of unplanned hodgepodge of residences and businesses. It just doesn't match the tidy, upscale image some people in Edina would like to present.

A neighborhood group from that Morningside area had become aware that their area was part of a couple of long-range development plans on the Edina city books. Although those plans were quite inactive, and had been sitting idle since 1990, the residents realized that the mechanism was hanging there and could be resurrected at any time.

The amazing part, at least to those who like planned redevelopment, is that the residents of that area like the unplanned nature of it. They enjoy living in a mixed business/residential area, and made it clear that they don't want Edina planning their area.

The strong, organized neighborhood group knew exactly what they wanted, and they got it. The 44th and France area was removed from Edina's development plan.

I view the Morningside win as another reversal of the trend toward planned redevelopment that I've written about many times. The Crystal Heights citizen's group fought off a fully-planned development that would have wiped out many homes. Brooklyn Center residents gathered in enough numbers to put a considered development back into the shadows. The dramatic reversal of the Poletown decision last week, and other similar cases, are, I believe, re-establishing that private property must not be taken and given to other private developers... no matter how grandiose or profitable the scheme may be.

The whole idea of planned development... that a governmental unit should be able to decide what businesses will be allowed in which areas, is rapidly falling into disfavor. It's a good movement, and one that can, in time, cause a resurrection of "neighborhood businesses" that have been pushed out by planners. As I wrote in The Banishment of the Working Poor:

We once had great working-class neighborhoods in our cities. Most of them have been obliterated by forceful planning, and the current "nanny" attitude is keeping them from naturally reoccurring. If we can reverse that attitude, the working poor can again have REAL neighborhoods. All that is required is the adoption of a hands-off attitude, allowing the market to develop by itself. That will probably require electing officials who are not determined to force any sort of "revitalization" on others.

While lower-income people are those who have suffered most from "planned redevelopment", we've all lost. We've lost the excitement of diversity and unplanned development. Certainly, planned development can produce neat results... if we all were forced to wear uniforms, that too would be neater, but we would rail at the idea of losing our individuality. Neighborhoods, if left to develop naturally, also develop an individuality and a uniqueness that cannot be achieved by planning.

There was one revealing comment by an Edina councilman, to the effect that we all appreciate the "quaintness" of the 44th and France area, but the city shouldn't give up the "tools" to control development in that area. That councilman just can't seem to realize or admit that what has made that Morningside area unique and quaint (and fun) is that the city hasn't been involved. It developed without planning... without the use of force.

Government officials will probably always have a tendency to over-control development. It can give them a sense of power and importance, and developments provide something for them to point at as results of their effort. The downside of planned development, though, is far more than a loss of uniqueness and diversity. It inevitably damages some individuals and businesses in favor of others. It will always be possible to take any area and develop in a manner that may produce more tax revenue. That includes your property and mine, and the property of city council members too, but that doesn't mean that it should be done. Property rights are precious, and our elected officials have been violating them rather than protecting them.

I really encourage everyone to emulate the Morningside residents and pay close attention to local government. It isn't that local government officials are evil, but when residents don't seem to care what their elected officials do, they'll do whatever they like.