Could this happen here?

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http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/04/asia/china-npc-military-budget/index.html
At 2:10 he talks about a couple that was abducted from their home so that the land could be seized by corrupt government officials for economic development. The land is extremely valuable. Could that happen here? To fulfill the promise of jobs for everyone?

Our transparency is going down every day. I suppose if our corruption reaches higher than Russia's level, which is probably the conservatives' intention, it could.

Wikipedia
It happens all the time and it is perfectly legal. It is called Eminent domain in the United States and the Philippines, Compulsory purchase in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland, Resumption in Hong Kong, resumption/compulsory acquisition in Australia, and expropriation in France, Mexico, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain.

Can the Government Seize My Property Without Paying Me?

Eminent Domain was employed copiously to build the highways around New York City.

A new film out this week on Kelo vs. New London, one of the great travesties of justice in our time:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUptZEZdT-M

http://littlepinkhousemovie.com/

Eventually anything can happen here, if it hasn't already.

Here's some more about the new Kelo movie (trailer above):

"Little Pink House" Brings the Kelo Case to the Big Screen
An impressive new movie dramatizes the story behind the famous Supreme Court case about whether it is permissible for the government to condemn homes in order to promote private "economic development."

The soon-to-be-released independent film Little Pink House dramatizes the story behind Kelo v. City of New London, the notorious 2005 Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that it is permissible for the government to condemn homes in order to promote "economic development." Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for "public use," a narrow 5-4 majority ruled that a taking that transfers property to private developers is permissible. The Kelo case generated a massive public reaction, with over 80% of Americans opposing the ruling, and 45 states passing reform laws intended to restrict the use of eminent domain for private development. No other case united such disparate people and groups as the NAACP, libertarian property rights advocates, Ralph Nader, and Rush Limbaugh.

Little Pink House, loosely based on journalist Jeff Benedict's book of the same name, does an excellent job of portraying the human drama that led to Supreme Court decision. It shows how a group of lower-middle class New London, Connecticut homeowners found themselves steamrolled by a plan to take their land in order to facilitate a development project backed by powerful political forces, including Connecticut Governor John Rowland, the New London Development Corporation (the private organization that planned and conducted the takings on behalf of the City of New London), and Pfizer, Inc., a major pharmaceutical firm that hoped to benefit from the development project. The film depicts how Susette Kelo - owner of the iconic "Little Pink House" that became a nationally known symbol of the case - and her neighbors did all they could to resist the seizure of their land through the political process, but were overmatched by powerful opponents. It also portrays some (but by no means all) of the extralegal harrassment by which the NLDC sought to pressure owners to sell "voluntarily." These shenanigans included such tactics as menacing late night phone calls, dumping of waste on the resisting owners' property, and locking out tenants during cold winter weather.

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/18/li ... elo-case-t