Even such a law, however, would fall short of the public need. To give the city or other agency a free hand in controlling the environs of a public place, the authorities should be invested with power to acquire the actual title, and then to dispose of it subject to such restrictions as might be deemed expedient. This course offers the double advantage of giving the public agency absolute control of the future use and improvement of the surrounding property, and of enabling it, if the price of acquisition is not too great, to recoup in some measure the cost of the improvement by selling the residual title. A lot abutting on a park or boulevard might be worth much more after it had become part of a larger area subject to uniform building lines and restrictions than it was in its unencumbered condition; and the public authorities, by treating the whole improvement and its environment as a unit, might reap a pecuniary advantage which they could not have conferred upon individual owners even if they had desired to do so. An examination of the power of municipalities to take land in excess of physical requirements involves two questions: first, whether extra land can be taken merely for the purpose of selling it and defraying the cost of the improvement; and, second, whether, even if that right is denied, such land can be condemned and resold for the purpose of imposing upon it building or sanitary restrictions and limitations of use. As already stated, it may be accepted as elementary that neither the state, through its legislative department, nor any subordinate agency of the state can take a man’s property against his will, under the power of eminent domain, merely for the purpose of giving it or selling it to another man. Such a taking would not be for public use and would violate the state and federal constitutions. It by no means follows, however, that a state agency, exercising the power of eminent domain, is always forbidden to derive profit from the sale of property not found to be actually needed. The activities of the Sanitary District of Chicago suffice to show how an area larger than is demanded by the ultimate needs of the public work may be acquired and converted into a source of revenue. A municipal corporation enjoys a large discretion in determining for itself how much land it needs for its public works, and courts will not ordinarily curb its freedom of action unless the exercise of the power of eminent domain is clearly excessive. If the city council saw fit to condemn a strip of land five hundred feet wide for an avenue or boulevard, the courts would have no right to question its decision unless, in the particular instance, there was some “manifest injustice, oppression or gross abuse of power”;[82] nevertheless, if it did clearly appear as a fact that the ultimate object was to lay out an avenue only one hundred feet in width, the question would be squarely presented whether the margins on each