1"[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. That Clause is made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897).

2 KELO v. NEW LONDON

4 KELO v. NEW LONDON

on the arrival of the Pfizer facility and the new commerceit was expected to attract. In addition to creating jobs,generating tax revenue, and helping to "build momentum for the revitalization of downtown New London," id., at 92, the plan was also designed to make the City more attractive and to create leisure and recreational opportunities on the waterfront and in the park.

After the Superior Court ruled, both sides took appeals to the Supreme Court of Connecticut. That court held, over a dissent, that all of the City’s proposed takings were valid. It began by upholding the lower court’s determination that the takings were authorized by chapter 132, the State’s municipal development statute. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §8–186 et seq. (2005). That statute expresses a legislative determination that the taking of land, even developed land, as part of an economic development project is a "public use" and in the "public interest." 268 Conn., at 18–28, 843 A. 2d, at 515–521. Next, relying on cases such as Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984), and Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954), the court held that such economic development qualified as a valid public use under both the Federal and State Constitutions. 268 Conn., at 40, 843 A. 2d, at 527.

Finally, adhering to its precedents, the court went on todetermine, first, whether the takings of the particularproperties at issue were "reasonably necessary" to achieving the City’s intended public use, id., at 82, 843 A. 2d, at 552–553, and, second, whether the takings were for "reasonably foreseeable needs," id., at 93, 843 A. 2d, at 558– 559. The court upheld the trial court’s factual findings asto parcel 3, but reversed the trial court as to parcel 4A, agreeing with the City that the intended use of this land was sufficiently definite and had been given "reasonable attention" during the planning process. Id., at 120–121, 843 A. 2d, at 574.

The three dissenting justices would have imposed a"heightened" standard of judicial review for takings justified by economic development. Although they agreed thatthe plan was intended to serve a valid public use, theywould have found all the takings unconstitutional because the City had failed to adduce "clear and convincing evidence" that the economic benefits of the plan would in fact come to pass. Id., at 144, 146, 843 A. 2d, at 587, 588 (Zarella, J., joined by Sullivan, C. J., and Katz, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

III Two polar propositions are perfectly clear. On the one hand, it has long been accepted that the sovereign may not take the property of A for the sole purpose of transferring it to another private party B, even though A is paid just compensation. On the other hand, it is equally clear that a State may transfer property from one private party to another if future "use by the public" is the purpose of the taking; the condemnation of land for a railroad with com

As for the first proposition, the City would no doubt be forbidden from taking petitioners’ land for the purpose of conferring a private benefit on a particular private party. See Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 245 ("A purely private taking could not withstand the scrutiny of the public use requirement; it would serve no legitimate purpose of government and would thus be void"); Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Nebraska, 164 U. S. 403 (1896).5 Nor would the City be allowed to take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit. The takings before us, however, would be executed pursuant to a "carefully considered" development plan. 268 Conn., at 54, 843 A. 2d, at 536. The trial judgeand all the members of the Supreme Court of Connecticut agreed that there was no evidence of an illegitimate purpose in this case.6 Therefore, as was true of the statute

challenged in Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 245, the City’s development plan was not adopted "to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals."

On the other hand, this is not a case in which the City isplanning to open the condemned land—at least not in its entirety—to use by the general public. Nor will the private lessees of the land in any sense be required to operate like common carriers, making their services available to all comers. But although such a projected use would be sufficient to satisfy the public use requirement, this "Court long ago rejected any literal requirement thatcondemned property be put into use for the general public." Id., at 244. Indeed, while many state courts in themid-19th century endorsed "use by the public" as theproper definition of public use, that narrow view steadily eroded over time. Not only was the "use by the public" test difficult to administer (e.g., what proportion of the public need have access to the property? at what price?),7 but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society.8 Accordingly, when this

—————— office space and so forth to other private tenants—the identities of those private parties were not known when the plan was adopted. It is, of course, difficult to accuse the government of having taken A’s property to benefit the private interests of B when the identity of B was unknown. 7See, e.g., Dayton Gold & Silver Mining Co. v. Seawell, 11 Nev. 394, 410, 1876 WL 4573, *11 (1876) ("If public occupation and enjoyment of the object for which land is to be condemned furnishes the only and true test for the right of eminent domain, then the legislature would certainly have the constitutional authority to condemn the lands of any private citizen for the purpose of building hotels and theaters. Why not? A hotel is used by the public as much as a railroad. The public have the same right, upon payment of a fixed compensation, to seek rest and refreshment at a public inn as they have to travel upon a railroad").8From upholding the Mill Acts (which authorized manufacturers dependent on power-producing dams to flood upstream lands in exchange for just compensation), to approving takings necessary for the

Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader and more natural interpretation of public use as "public purpose." See, e.g., Fallbrook Irrigation Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 158–164 (1896). Thus, in a case upholding a mining company’s use of an aerial bucket line to transport ore over property it did not own, Justice Holmes’opinion for the Court stressed "the inadequacy of use bythe general public as a universal test." Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 531 (1906).9 We have repeatedly and consistently rejected that narrow test ever since.10

—————— economic development of the West through mining and irrigation, many state courts either circumvented the "use by the public" test when necessary or abandoned it completely. See Nichols, The Meaning of Public Use in the Law of Eminent Domain, 20 B. U. L. Rev. 615, 619– 624 (1940) (tracing this development and collecting cases). For example, in rejecting the "use by the public" test as overly restrictive, the Nevada Supreme Court stressed that "[m]ining is the greatest of the industrial pursuits in this state. All other interests are subservient to it. Our mountains are almost barren of timber, and our valleys could never be made profitable for agricultural purposes except for the fact of a home market having been created by the mining developments in different sections of the state. The mining and milling interests give employment to many men, and the benefits derived from this business are distributed as much, and sometimes more, among the laboring classes than with the owners of the mines and mills. . . . The present prosperity of the state is entirely due to the mining developments already made, and the entire people of the state are directly interested in having the future developments unobstructed by the obstinate action of any individual or individuals." Dayton Gold & Silver Mining Co., 11 Nev., at 409–410, 1876 WL, at *11. 9See also Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361 (1905) (upholding a statute that authorized the owner of arid land to widen a ditch on his neighbor’s property so as to permit a nearby stream to irrigate his land). 10 See, e.g., Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240 U. S. 30, 32 (1916) ("The inadequacy of use by the general public as a universal test is established"); Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1014–1015 (1984) ("This Court, however, has rejected the notion that a use is a public use only if the property

10 KELO v. NEW LONDON Opinion of the Court

In Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954), this Court upheld a redevelopment plan targeting a blighted area of Washington, D. C., in which most of the housing for thearea’s 5,000 inhabitants was beyond repair. Under the plan, the area would be condemned and part of it utilized for the construction of streets, schools, and other public facilities. The remainder of the land would be leased or sold to private parties for the purpose of redevelopment, including the construction of low-cost housing.

The owner of a department store located in the area challenged the condemnation, pointing out that his store was not itself blighted and arguing that the creation of a "better balanced, more attractive community" was not a valid public use. Id., at 31. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Douglas refused to evaluate this claim in isolation, deferring instead to the legislative and agency judgment that the area "must be planned as a whole" for the plan to be successful. Id., at 34. The Court explainedthat "community redevelopment programs need not, by force of the Constitution, be on a piecemeal basis—lot by lot, building by building." Id., at 35. The public use underlying the taking was unequivocally affirmed:

should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as —————— taken is put to use for the general public").

In Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984), the Court considered a Hawaii statute whereby fee title was taken from lessors and transferred to lessees (for just compensation) in order to reduce the concentration of land ownership. We unanimously upheld the statute and rejected the Ninth Circuit’s view that it was "a naked attempt on the part of the state of Hawaii to take the property of A and transfer it to B solely for B’s private use and benefit." Id., at 235 (internal quotation marks omitted). Reaffirming Berman’s deferential approach to legislative judgments in this field, we concluded that the State’s purpose of eliminating the "social and economic evils of a land oligopoly" qualified as a valid public use. 467 U. S., at 241–242. Our opinion also rejected the contention that the mere fact that the State immediately transferred the properties to private individuals upon condemnation somehow diminished the public character of the taking. "[I]t is only the taking’s purpose, and not its mechanics," we explained, that matters in determining public use. Id., at 244.

In that same Term we decided another public use casethat arose in a purely economic context. In Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto, Co., 467 U. S. 986 (1984), the Court dealt with provisions of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act under which the Environmental Protection Agency could consider the data (including trade secrets)

12 KELO v. NEW LONDON

submitted by a prior pesticide applicant in evaluating a subsequent application, so long as the second applicant paid just compensation for the data. We acknowledged that the "most direct beneficiaries" of these provisions were the subsequent applicants, id., at 1014, but we nevertheless upheld the statute under Berman and Midkiff. We found sufficient Congress’ belief that sparing applicants the cost of time-consuming research eliminated asignificant barrier to entry in the pesticide market and thereby enhanced competition. 467 U. S., at 1015.

Viewed as a whole, our jurisprudence has recognized that the needs of society have varied between different parts of the Nation, just as they have evolved over time in response to changed circumstances. Our earliest cases in particular embodied a strong theme of federalism, emphasizing the "great respect" that we owe to state legislatures and state courts in discerning local public needs. See Hairston v. Danville & Western R. Co., 208 U. S. 598, 606– 607 (1908) (noting that these needs were likely to vary depending on a State’s "resources, the capacity of the soil, the relative importance of industries to the general public welfare, and the long-established methods and habits of the people").11 For more than a century, our public use juris

IV Those who govern the City were not confronted with the need to remove blight in the Fort Trumbull area, but their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed tojustify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to our deference. The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including—but by no means limited to—new jobs and increased tax revenue. As with other exercises in urban planning and development,12 the City is endeavoring to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential, and recreational uses of land, with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. To effectuate this plan, the City has invoked astate statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to promote economic development. Given the comprehensive character of the plan, the thorough deliberation that preceded its adoption, and the limited scope of our review, it is appropriate for us, as it was in Berman, to resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not on a piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan. Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment. To avoid this result, petitioners urge us to adopt a new bright-line rule that economic development does not qualify as a public use. Putting aside the unpersuasive suggestion that the City’s plan will provide only purely eco

—————— judgment is entitled to the highest respect"). 12Cf. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926).

14 KELO v. NEW LONDON Opinion of the Court

nomic benefits, neither precedent nor logic supports petitioners’ proposal. Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government. There is, moreover, no principled way of distinguishing economic development from the other public purposes that we have recognized. In our cases upholding takings that facilitated agriculture and mining, for example, we emphasized the importance of those industries to the welfareof the States in question, see, e.g., Strickley, 200 U. S. 527; in Berman, we endorsed the purpose of transforming ablighted area into a "well-balanced" community throughredevelopment, 348 U. S., at 33;13 in Midkiff, we upheld the interest in breaking up a land oligopoly that "created artificial deterrents to the normal functioning of theState’s residential land market," 467 U. S., at 242; and in Monsanto, we accepted Congress’ purpose of eliminating a "significant barrier to entry in the pesticide market," 467 U. S., at 1014–1015. It would be incongruous to hold that the City’s interest in the economic benefits to be derived from the development of the Fort Trumbull area has less of a public character than any of those other interests. Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic devel——————

13It is a misreading of Berman to suggest that the only public use upheld in that case was the initial removal of blight. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 8. The public use described in Berman extended beyondthat to encompass the purpose of developing that area to create conditions that would prevent a reversion to blight in the future. See 348 U. S., at 34–35 ("It was not enough, [the experts] believed, to remove existing buildings that were insanitary or unsightly. It was important to redesign the whole area so as to eliminate the conditions that cause slums. . . . The entire area needed redesigning so that a balanced, integrated plan could be developed for the region, including not only new homes, but also schools, churches, parks, streets, and shopping centers. In this way it was hoped that the cycle of decay of the area could be controlled and the birth of future slums prevented"). Had the public use in Berman been defined more narrowly, it would have been difficult to justify the taking of the plaintiff’s nonblighted department store.

Petitioners contend that using eminent domain foreconomic development impermissibly blurs the boundary between public and private takings. Again, our cases foreclose this objection. Quite simply, the government’s pursuit of a public purpose will often benefit individual private parties. For example, in Midkiff, the forced transfer of property conferred a direct and significant benefit on those lessees who were previously unable to purchase their homes. In Monsanto, we recognized that the "most direct beneficiaries" of the data-sharing provisions were the subsequent pesticide applicants, but benefiting them in this way was necessary to promoting competition in the pesticide market. 467 U. S., at 1014.14 The owner of the department store in Berman objected to "taking from onebusinessman for the benefit of another businessman," 348

government—or so the Congress might conclude. We cannot say that public ownership is the sole method of promoting the public purposes of community redevelopment projects." Id., at 34.16

It is further argued that without a bright-line rule nothing would stop a city from transferring citizen A’s property to citizen B for the sole reason that citizen B will put the property to a more productive use and thus pay more taxes. Such a one-to-one transfer of property, executed outside the confines of an integrated development plan, is not presented in this case. While such an unusual exercise of government power would certainly raise a suspicion that a private purpose was afoot,17 the hypo——————

16Nor do our cases support JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s novel theory that the government may only take property and transfer it to private parties when the initial taking eliminates some "harmful property use." Post, at 8 (dissenting opinion). There was nothing "harmful" about the nonblighted department store at issue in Berman, 348 U. S. 26; see also n. 13, supra; nothing "harmful" about the lands at issue in the mining and agriculture cases, see, e.g., Strickley, 200 U. S. 527; see also nn. 9, 11, supra; and certainly nothing "harmful" about the trade secrets owned by the pesticide manufacturers in Monsanto, 467 U. S. 986. In each case, the public purpose we upheld depended on a private party’s future use of the concededly nonharmful property that was taken. Byfocusing on a property’s future use, as opposed to its past use, our cases are faithful to the text of the Takings Clause. See U. S. Const., Amdt.

5. ("[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"). JUSTICE O’CONNOR’s intimation that a "public purpose" may not be achieved by the action of private parties, see post, at 8, confuses the purpose of a taking with its mechanics, a mistake we warned of in Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 244. See also Berman, 348 U. S., at 33–34 ("The public end may be as well or better served through an agency of private enterprise than through a department of government").

17Courts have viewed such aberrations with a skeptical eye. See, e.g., 99 Cents Only Stores v. Lancaster Redevelopment Agency, 237 F. Supp. 2d 1123 (CD Cal. 2001); cf. Cincinnati v. Vester, 281 U. S. 439, 448 (1930) (taking invalid under state eminent domain statute for lack of a reasoned explanation). These types of takings may also implicate other constitutional guarantees. See Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528

Alternatively, petitioners maintain that for takings of this kind we should require a "reasonable certainty" that the expected public benefits will actually accrue. Such a rule, however, would represent an even greater departure from our precedent. "When the legislature’s purpose is legitimate and its means are not irrational, our casesmake clear that empirical debates over the wisdom oftakings—no less than debates over the wisdom of other kinds of socioeconomic legislation—are not to be carried out in the federal courts." Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 242.20 ——————

U. S. 562 (2000) (per curiam).

18Cf. Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting) ("The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits").

19A parade of horribles is especially unpersuasive in this context, since the Takings Clause largely "operates as a conditional limitation, permitting the government to do what it wants so long as it pays the charge." Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498, 545 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part). Speaking of the takings power, Justice Iredell observed that "[i]t is not sufficient to urge, that the power may be abused, for, such is the nature of all power—such is the tendency of every human institution: and, it might as fairly be said, that the power of taxation, which is only circumscribed by the discretion of the Body, in which it is vested, ought not to be granted, because the Legislature, disregarding its true objects, might, for visionary and useless projects, impose a tax to the amount of nineteen shillings in the pound. We must be content to limit power where we can, and where we cannot, consistently with its use, we must be content to repose a salutory confidence." Calder, 3 Dall., at 400 (opinion concurring in result).

20See also Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S., at 422–423 ("[W]e need not make a specific factual determination whether the condemnation will accomplish its objectives"); Monsanto, 467 U. S., at 1015, n. 18 ("Monsanto argues that EPA and, by implication, Congress, misapprehended the true ‘barriers to entry’ in the pesticide industry and that the challenged provisions of the law create, rather than reduce, barriers to entry. . . . Such economic arguments are better directed to Congress.

18 KELO v. NEW LONDON Opinion of the Court

Indeed, earlier this Term we explained why similar practical concerns (among others) undermined the use of the"substantially advances" formula in our regulatory takings doctrine. See Lingle v. Chevron U. S. A. Inc., 544 U. S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 14–15) (noting that this formula "would empower—and might often require—courtsto substitute their predictive judgments for those of elected legislatures and expert agencies"). The disadvantages of a heightened form of review are especially pronounced in this type of case. Orderly implementation of a comprehensive redevelopment plan obviously requiresthat the legal rights of all interested parties be established before new construction can be commenced. A constitutional rule that required postponement of the judicial approval of every condemnation until the likelihood of success of the plan had been assured would unquestionably impose a significant impediment to the successfulconsummation of many such plans.

Just as we decline to second-guess the City’s considered judgments about the efficacy of its development plan, we also decline to second-guess the City’s determinations as to what lands it needs to acquire in order to effectuate the project. "It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area. Once the question of the public purpose has been decided, the amount and character of land to be taken for the project and the need for a particular tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of the legislative branch." Berman, 348 U. S., at 35–36.

nations may entail, notwithstanding the payment of just compensation.21 We emphasize that nothing in our opinion precludes any State from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power. Indeed, many States already impose "public use" requirements that are stricter than the federal baseline. Some of these requirements have been established as a matter of state constitutional law,22 while others are expressed in state eminent domainstatutes that carefully limit the grounds upon which takings may be exercised.23 As the submissions of the parties and their amici make clear, the necessity and wisdom ofusing eminent domain to promote economic development are certainly matters of legitimate public debate.24 This Court’s authority, however, extends only to determining whether the City’s proposed condemnations are for a "public use" within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Because over a century of our