[ManM]

I just don't see as much a distinction between a private owner who does something more "useful" with the land, and a public work that is supposed to do something more "useful" with the land. A good friend of mine was put out of business by one of these road building exercises, and I saw nothing fair about the process. Whether his land was taken for a road or for a Starbucks seems to me to be secondary to the point that he was put out of business so that something more "useful" could be put there. Why would a road through your home be any less of a rape than a Starbucks?