Field Of (Broken) Dreams In New London?

That now-cliched line from Field of Dreams, "if you build it they will come" (actually, it's "he will come," but work with us here) seemed to be the driving force behind the New London Development Corporation's plans for the Fort Trumbull neighborhood when it wanted to condemn the homes of Susette Kelo and her neighbors. If they condemned, Pfizer would come.

They condemned the hell out of it, but it turns out that it wasn't the pharmaceutical giant that came, or even Shoeless Joe and his Black Sox. According to a report in the New London, Connecticut paper The Day, birds -- killdeer, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves and others -- have come: "Fort Trumbull Neighborhood Is For The Birds."

When Spinoza observed some 350 years ago that "nature abhors a vacuum," the Fort Trumbull peninsula hadn't seen its first fort yet, let alone any hints of the epic property-rights struggle to come as the 21st century dawned.

Now, just two years after the last house was razed by the New London Development Corp. for an as-yet unrealized new development, the former neighborhood is something of a demonstration site for the Dutch philosopher's famous insight. The empty lots once occupied by yards, porches and office buildings are turning into a meadow of wildflowers, milkweed and tall grasses, and the birds are moving in.

As Professor Gideon Kanner commented on this story last week, You Can't Make this Up. See also Eminent Domain is for the Birds, from Reason's blog.