In an October 2009 Urban Studies article, Dick Carpenter and John Ross present new research on eminent domain in the US. The authors study areas where local governments plan to acquire property via eminent domain and convey that property to other private owners. They show that area residents are disproportionately members of ''less politically powerful populations'' and situate their findings within critical urban theory. This response argues that, although Carpenter and Ross do make a useful empirical contribution to the literature, there is an unacknowledged dissonance between their theoretical and normative frameworks and those of most critical urban theorists. The latter understand redevelopment within the broader context of neo-liberalism and structural inequality, and advocate equitable and communitycontrolled redevelopment. While Carpenter and Ross' position on neo-liberalism and community control is unclear, they are affiliated with an organisation that prioritises individual property rights rather than equity.Few phenomena reveal as much about the political economy of US cities as does the use of eminent domain by local governments. In the post-WWII period, eminent domain-essentially the power to buy private property from unwilling sellers-has been put to a wide variety of ends, many justified by the promise of revitalisation. Cities used eminent domain to clear 'blight' and construct infrastructure (including public housing) during the era of urban renewal, and to facilitate economic development during the recent entrepreneurial/neoliberal period. Hence, eminent domain lies at the nexus of much broader phenomena, including the persistence of the race-and class-divided metropolis, the fiscal crisis of urban and inner-suburban governments, the relationship between capital and the state, the challenge of change in built-out places, the political capacity of community organisations, and the role of planning and planners. Eminent domain must be placed in this context not just for analytical reasons, but ultimately for normative ones, as context determines eminent domain's beneficiaries Christopher Niedt is in the National