While eminent domain is the overarching legal means through which all properties are seized, there is plenty of sketchiness to be found in the process of declar

While eminent domain is the overarching legal means through which all properties are seized, there is plenty of sketchiness to be found in the process of declaring a property "blight" so that it can be seized. My city has done a good job of condemning blighted properties in terms of having 0 public scandals surrounding their decisions, but there's still a tinge of corruption surrounding every old mill that is declared to be blight only for the original structure to be converted to luxury flats with only minor modification and landscaping. "Blight" to me means a property and any structures on that property being so unfit for use that it will require significant rehabilitation (think major ddmolition and environmental cleanup) to return it to a bare-ground state before it can be used for anything else. Seizing a propery, giving it away for nothing/practically nothing, and then watching a developer flip it for a massive profit reeks of corruption when the same developers happen to be the winners over and over. There's also the issue of slightly sketchy property tax reassessments that are a hallmark of many neighborhood revitalization projects. There is almost always a law stipulating the maximum year-over-year rate increases but slap the maximum rate on a stubborn holdout for enough years in a row and that 15% maximum annual reassessment increase (the maximum in my city) can turn even the least valuable property imaginable into an unaffordable anchor around the owners neck within a few years.