It can't be just about money - governments successfully negotiate with unions that hold the whole country over a barrel with strikes of essential services.
But eminent domain to build vital infrastructure? No - forced confiscation is the only solution. Strange.
When there are potentially tens of thousands of property owners along that path, each property owner can derail the whole thing or add enormous costs, so they have an insanely strong negotiating position. If you were just to attempt to negotiate with each property owner, the cost would make building new rail in a populated area impossible.
There has never been any real length of railroad built through a populated area with many landowners without some kind of government intervention akin to eminent domain.
So the government is in a position of "we'll give you X for this, but if you don't agree we'll just take it from you", which is a... non-Texan position for government to be in, to say the least.
Texas government doesn't seem to have that reservation when it comes to highway expansions within cities, that's for sure.
Now imagine that you had to negotiate with 10,000 homeowners. At least one of them is going to insist that their place is worth one billion dollars and count on you caving because they can hold up the entire project.
That's why forced confiscation - because people try to hold the project hostage for ransom.
Unions hold countries hostage by closing down rail or airports. Still, a solution that doesn't cost 1 billion dollars per person is always found.
> imagine that you had to negotiate with 10,000 homeowners
Imagine you offer them 2-10x market value. With a confidentiality clause. And the threat of confiscation or project abandonment. I believe an amiable solution would be found in most cases.
Completely different situation. You only need the majority of the workers in the union. No single person or small group of people can hold up the process.
For this situation to be at all similar to a union negation, you’d need to group all affected property owners together, offer them some multiple of property value each and ask for a group vote as a binding decision.
That’s still eminent domain, just potentially with a higher payout, which equates to a higher cost to the taxpayers.
Considering the astonishing inefficiency of government works I really doubt confiscation compensations is a significant expenditure.
Sure. It's often found in the form of a court decision.
> Imagine you offer them 2-10x market value. With a confidentiality clause. And the threat of confiscation or project abandonment. I believe an amiable solution would be found in most cases.
Sure - in most cases. And for the ones that won't? You're going to have to either abandon the project, wait for them to die, or confiscate.
Then you confiscate, sure. And show publicly that you offered 10x and were refused. But not confiscation by default, in all cases.
I guess my argument is that if you really want something, you better pay up. Like for anything else, from cars and boats to 10x developers. What if the government could come to you whenever they want and say: I forcefully require your work and talent and I will not pay more than market price for it.
I mean if you're gonna f_ck me in the end anyway, at least have the decency to buy me dinner first.
