746
Opinion of Scalia, J.
quirement is to ensure that there has been a "determination of the type and intensity of development legally permitted on the subject property," MacDonald, supra, at 348; and says later that "[o]ur cases uniformly reflect an insistence on knowing the nature and extent of permitted development before adjudicating the constitutionality of the regulations that purport to limit it," 477 U. S., at 351. The Court fails even to mention, in its otherwise encyclopedic description of the development of the "final decision" requirement, the most recent of our opinions addressing the subject, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003 (1992), in which we relied exclusively on these more precise formulations and did not mention the vague language quoted by the Court today, see id., at 1011.
The focus of the "final decision" inquiry is on ascertaining the extent of the governmental restriction on land use, not what the government has given the landowner in exchange for that restriction. When our cases say, as the Court explains ante, at 734, that without a "final decision" it is impossible to know whether the regulation "goes too far," Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922), they mean "goes too far in restricting the profitable use of the land," not "goes not far enough in providing compensation for restricting the profitable use of the land." The latter pertains not to whether there has been a taking, but to the subsequent question of whether, if so, there has been just compensation.
In all of the cases discussed in Part II-A of the Court's opinion bearing on the question whether a "final decision" requisite to a takings claim had been made, the point at issue was whether the government had finally determined the permissible use of the land. In Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255 (1980), discussed ante, at 735-736, the government had not yet determined how many houses the challenged zoning ordinance would permit on the plaintiff's property. In Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn.,
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