![handle is hein.journals/wlron2025 and id is 1 raw text is:
CASE STUDY
STATEGRAFT: FACILITATING PREDATORY TAKINGS
BY EMINENT DOMAIN
TANYA WASHINGTON*
The concept of stategraft, as described in Professor Atuahene's
groundbreaking article, frames a new theory of corruption centered on
criminal and predacious state action involving the transfer of personal
property by government actors to the State, through means that violate
controlling laws and contravene individuals' human and civil rights.1
While Professor Atuahene's article introduces the concept of stategraft
in the context of inflated property tax assessments, the theory is alienable
and it offers a frame for corrupt and criminal conduct by state actors that
enriches public coffers by other means and in other contexts. The
litigation in Peoplestown, a historically Black neighborhood in Atlanta,
Georgia, illustrates the operation of stategraft through the exploitative
use of eminent domain to facilitate gentrification of a vulnerable
community of legacy residents, under the guise of engineering efforts
that purportedly addressed area flooding.2
* Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law, Professor of Children's Constitutional
Rights, Georgia State University College of Law; J.D., University of Maryland School
of Law; LLM, Harvard University Law School. This article was inspired by my six year
long experience litigating my rights as a defendant in an eminent domain action brought
against me by the City of Atlanta in 2016. I had the honor of presenting on a panel with
Professor Atuahene at the 2018 Law and Society Conference in Toronto, Canada.
Professor Atuahene presented an early draft of her article on stategraft, and my
presentation centered on legal obstacles to defending against predatory use of eminent
domain, which is the subject of this symposium piece.
1. Bernadette Atuahene, A Theory of Stategraft, 98 N.Y.U. L. REv. 1, 3
(2023).
2. Atlanta v. Washington, No. 2016-CV-282032, 2022 Ga. Super. LEXIS
4894 (Ga. Super. Ct. May 13, 2022). Cliff Albright, Gentrification is Sweeping Through
America. Here Are the People Fighting Back, THE GUARDIAN (Nov. 10, 2017, 5:00 AM),
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/10/atlanta-super-gentrification-
eminent-domain [https://perma.cc/5VTZ-PDC6]; Jaclynn Ashly, The Black residents
fighting Atlanta to stay in their homes, ALJAZEERA (Nov. 30, 2020),
https://www.aljazeera. com/features/2020/11/30/atlanta-gentrification
[https://perma.cc/RV7B-96V4]; Cliff Albright, Gentrification Comes to Atlanta's Last
Working Class Neighborhood, ATLANTA BLACK STAR (Nov. 10, 2017),
https://atlantablackstar.com/2017/11/10/gentrification-comes-atlantas-last-working-
class-black-neighborhood/ [https://perma.cc/N3XW-85Q7]. Importantly, flooding in
Peoplestown and surrounding neighborhoods in Atlanta is often attributed to over-
development and poor maintenance of an overwhelmed and outdated stormwater sewage](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/wlron2025&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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