What [cities] cannot do is take property from A and give it to B just because B promises to create more jobs and taxes with the land. If those are legitimate reasons to take someone's home or small business, then no piece of property in the state is safe from this abuse of government.

That is the exception that swallows the rule. Private-to-private takings are still authorized when they are state financed ? something that's true in nearly all large-scale developments. The league-supported bill doesn't end eminent domain abuse; it simply shifts decision-making to St. Paul and enlarges the lobbying power of the Minnesota League of Cities.

You and I each have a constitutional right that if our property is taken, it's taken for a public use.

I write about people in small towns; I don't write about people living in big cities. My kind of storytelling depends upon people that have time to talk to each other.

I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit.

China's ability to deliver nuclear warheads on American cities is expanding.