Private Property—Correcting the Half-Truths

Editor's Note: Since 1922, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opined that a regulation might “go too far” and constitute a taking, land use lawyers, planners, judges, and landowners have matched their heads wondering how far is too fa. The answers have usually not been very satisfactory for anyone, in laqe measure because the field of land use law and property rights is strewn with a great deal of “intellectual and cultural clutter,” says the author of this month's commentary, Eric Fryfogle. Perhaps we've been asking the wrong questions for more than 85 years. This month's provocative commentaty is an excefpt from Fryfogle's forthcoming book, On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of Land. Professor Freyfogle and Professor Harwey Jacobs (authors of numerous books and articles about private properg) will share their thoughts on private property rights during the Bettman Symposium at the APA National Conference in April 2008 in Las Vegas.