At issue in the case of Kelo v. New London was the condemnation of private homes for the purpose of transferring the land to a private developer for commercial, yet private development. 

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that government may not seize private property from citizens unless it is for "public use" and "just compensation" is paid:

... nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

This short, 12-word clause, the final clause (known as the "takings" clause) in the Fifth Amendment, has been held historically to constitute a prohibition upon the taking of private property by the government except where it is to be put to a public use and reasonable compensation is paid.  There has been a steady drumbeat of erosion of this protection over recent decades, as the meaning of public use has become more and more broad, with less and less "public" involvement in the use. 

Traditionally a public use has been though of as being something on the order of highways and road, a public housing project, or as part of the eradication of massive inner city "blight"--such as where entire blocks of inner city, urban slums are condemned so that, en masse, it may be torn down and a new use put to the land.  In the case of the "urban renewal" public use, the use has been thought of as the eradication of the blight, more so than the eventual re-use of the cleared land, which has frequently ended up in the hands of private developers creating private projects.

Nonetheless, there has been at least the appearance that a public use is being made of the property itself, even if that use is the removal of "urban blight" with an eye toward something better in the future.  In the case of blight removal, one might also persuasively argue that in the hands of the original owners, the blighted, run-down properties constituted a public danger that needed to be addressed, thus adding to the assurance that the taking was a public use for a public good.

The case of the New London, Connecticut takings represents, however, a newer brand of takings, in which a government entity, here the local government officials in New London, determines that it will involve itself in the private dealings of developers solely for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of property where the private developer has been unable to convince the property owners to "sell out."  The development in question, and virtually without question even in the minds of the majority-five Supreme Court justices, was not in and of itself, a public use of the property being taken.  What was found to have been the public use (as held the Connecticut State Supreme Court) is the after-effects of the private development.  That is, once the properties are seized and destroyed, once the commercial development is completed, there will come to be a public good in the form of increased tax revenues and new jobs generated--through private commerce--which will inure to the "public benefit" by increased tax revenue and employment.

Thus, New London has determined, the Connecticut Courts have determined, and now, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined, that one private use is a better private use that another private use, because it will result in new jobs and an increase in tax revenue.  Period.  End of analysis.  And really, that was about the end of the analysis for the U.S. Supreme Court.  Read what the Supremes had to say.  It is truly shocking, and it renders the protections of the Fifth Amendment's "takings clause" to virtually a nullity:

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 to justify 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.  [italics added]

The Supreme Court has unquestionably acknowledged the nature of the "taking" as being one for the purpose of increasing the tax base and creating jobs, solely an economic "public use."  The Court, amazingly, rested part of their authority for this economic basis upon the fact that there existed a state statute authorizing the use of eminent domain to promote economic development, and the traditional role of government in promoting economic development.  These bases, unfortunately, utterly sidestep the "takings clause" of the Fifth Amendment, and leave wide open the ability of government to determine that virtually any conceivable use of private property seized by the government (public or private) constitutes a public use so long as, at the end of the day, there is some public economic benefit.  As one might be able to argue that jobs and taxes--if only the personal income taxes of the new jobholders--will always arise from private business or commercial activity, it is extremely hard to conceive of a circumstance under which a governmental use of eminent domain would fall afoul of the Fifth Amendment.

The decision rendered by the five-justice majority of Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer, articulates as well as any politician could, the need to strive for justices and judges who will uphold the law--and the U.S. Constitution is the highest law of our land--as it was written, as it was intended, and not based upon their own personal social beliefs as to what ought to be.  A decision such as this own, so clearly wrong, and so clearly based in judicial law-making, underscores very acutely the need for an overhaul of the American judiciary, particularly with respect to activist, law-making judges, who cannot put aside personal beliefs and ideologies, and respect and uphold the Constitution.

Justice O'Connor, writing for the minority in dissenting from the Court's decision in this case--along with Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Justices Scalia and Thomas--summed up the perils of this decision:

Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote:

"An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority. . . . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean. . . . [A] law that takes property fro A and gives it to B:  It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumes that they have done it."  . . .

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power.  Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded--i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public--in the process.  To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property--and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Kelo v. New London is truly a poor, poor decision, from a Court that, albeit as narrowly as a nine-member court can be, makes decisions based in personal ideologies, political considerations, and an activist theory of the Constitution.  Not only is this particular decision outrageously bad in terms of the basic Constitutional right to the possession private property that has been abrogated today by this Court, but it portends the continuation of an activist federal judiciary from the top down, and will continue to do so until and unless more judges committed to upholding their oaths of office and upholding the Constitution make it to the bench.