Sarah Bond

Anne-Marie knows these property owners.

A lot of people do.

They're local businessmen.

One of them owns a sign company.

The other two run a trucking company.

This is how Canton, Michigan ends up at the center of a major legal battle.

A battle over not just the tree protection law, but about the limits of what cities can even do when it comes to permitting and zoning.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is this free market think tank.

And Chance is a constitutional lawyer.

He's one of those constitutional lawyers who cares a lot about property rights.

He says as a kid growing up in Houston, he learned a lot about what it means not to have property rights.

His parents were renters.

They didn't own their own home.

And OK, now the idea of property rights seems simple, right?

They're what you get to do when you own property.

But there are limits to your property rights.

You only get to do what you want up until it affects your neighbors.

So cities can tell you, for instance, you can't put a slaughterhouse next to a schoolyard.

And before you build anything, they can make you get construction permits and noise permits and environmental permits.

So traditionally, that has meant that the government can't physically take your land without paying you for it.