Columbia Gets a Lesson in Property Rights
1st January 2010
Columbia University is one of New York’s largest landowners, and perhaps the one with the most to gain from the city’s power to seize private property. But in a surprise ruling in early December, a state court struck down the city’s attempt to take private land in West Harlem and give it to the university. Now that case is becoming an important beachhead in the fight over eminent domain.