I think this action is assailable since there was an assumption on the part of the Supreme Court that there actually was a provable benefit to the community. If this construction is connected to the new Convention Center, I think that the claims made by the hospitality industry are quite vulnerable because they seem to be at odds with similar government data furnished by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

For instance, there is a common claim that the hospitality industry represents $4 billion dollars per year. Government statistics only show half of that in Davidson County in 2006. Even the larger Metropolitan Nashville statistics are used, the income from the Hospitality Industry goes no where near $4 Billion. These numbers include the hospitality at the convention center along with people passing through for other purposes. Are we going to steal property because of a hoax? Has the construction of a convention center ever produced all that was promised?

Just an aside --

You refer to this case as an outgrowth of the Kelo decision. This taking, however, would have been permitted under the law even before Kelo. Prior to that decision, blighted property could be taken for private development; the change in Kelo was to allow taking for private development of unblighted property.

This property isn't for the proposed new convention center. It's maybe a mile+ south outside the interstate loop around the inner core of the city. It's the entrance to the Music Row area of 16th and 17th Avenues and next to where the OLD County Music Hall of Fame stood.

The property isn't blighted. The government claims it is blighted in order to make it easier to take it, but anyone with working eyes and working brain can see that the property is most certainly not blighted.

I thought there might have been a connection because KMPG nearly always suggest a construction of a nearby anchor motel with lots of rooms to enhance the convention center. A mile is a little far away but some might think it is close enough for government work. About two out of three Tennesseans live in urban areas now so giving exceptions to development and housing agencies seems to neutralize the effect of Kelo only if you live in the sticks or can not be annexed out of the sticks.

Unfortunately, the determination that some properties in the area are blighted was made ten years ago, which to this day empowers MDHA to act.

As for Danny's comment, unfortunately, the narrow majority on the Supreme Court made no such assumptions, instead repeatedly citing "deference" to local legislators, and even arguing that there is little difference between private transfers and railroads, as both build the local economy. O'Connor in here dissenting opinion specifically predicted what we see today. I wrote a rather long-winded discussion of this today, if insomnia strikes.

The "blighted" language in the 1998 City Council ordinance was to satisfy the legal interpretation of the time. The Kelo decision has effectively removed "blight" as a requirement.