Land lock

City tales | The government took and destroyed the homes of Fort Trumbull, but so far the only thing to go up in their place is weeds | Alisa Harris

John Nordell/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images

NEW LONDON, Conn.— Michael Cristofaro stood in a weed-flecked field here and pointed to a stretch of sand between two telephone poles: "The driveway used to go right in here." The driveway used to lead to a Victorian home where Cristofaro's mother cooked Italian dinners for her six children and a yard where Cristofaro's father grew grape vines for his homemade wine.

Now, almost three years after the United States Supreme Court allowed New London to raze the Cristofaros' home in the interests of economic development, there is just a barren acre of land where the neighborhood once thrived. In Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court expanded the local government's power to take private land for public use, redefining "public use" to include the "public purpose" of economic revitalization.