ChunkMcHorkle

It doesn’t have to get as far as eminent domain. In at least one Georgia case the land was condemned by local authorities, the start of the legal process of eminent domain, and the family was no longer able to live in it regardless. So the use of eminent domain as a threat to force the sale of privately held land is already happening.

Every “voluntary” easement is signed in the shadow of automatic condemnation. When the company across the table can take your land if you say no, you aren’t negotiating, and attorneys representing landowners know that.

This quote is from one article of many about how non-local companies use condemnation as a tool to steal land, and how that has a very long history in the US. This particular article is about how a community in Nashville attempted to use condemnation in the other direction, condemning a property wanted by a data center so that no one could use it, but it gives the history pretty well.