Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lois Wille tells how a small group of Chicago business leaders created a thriving and viable neighborhood on the carcass of old rail yards and, in tbe process, managed to reinvigorate the central city.

Alarmed at the fate of other cities after decay had ravaged central business districts, Chicago's business leaders - several with substantial corporate investments in the South Loop - took action to protect not only their own property but also the entire downtown. The best way to shore up Chicago's downtown, they decided, was to entice middle-class families to form an integrated community and live there.

The quest for a new neighborhood in the Loop began early in 1972 in the office of Mayor Richard J. Daley, with the heads of the Midwest's biggest utility company, the city's biggest bank, and the world's biggest retail firm in attendance. Mayor Daley loved the idea but would commit no city money in the early stages. It seemed, in fact, as if this small group would not even be able to buy the rail property.

Reluctantly, however, George "Papa Bear" Halas agreed to part with fifty-one acres of rail yards, even though he had envisioned the property as a perfect site for a new football stadium for the Bears.

Against all odds, the project withstood a twenty-year roller coaster ride propelled by political and economic turbulence. Dearborn Park is now one of the most successful urban renewal efforts in the country. This peaceful little community of green parks and tree-lined walkways in the shadow of Sears Tower is that rarity in the city - a genuine neighborhood. Wille tells the fascinating and heartening story of how it came to pass.