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In the heart of downtown Chicago, on a square block surrounded by major civic landmarks, there stands - absolutely nothing. Why this desolation where there should be a fabulous skyscraper, a vertical money machine? How did this three-acre chunk of prime urban real estate, at one time the hub of a down-at-heel but bustling commercial district, become a blank eyesore, unused and unprofitable? And what does this sad vacancy tell us about the fate not only of Chicago but of nearly every American city in the aftermath of the Age of Excess? Here's the Deal is urban historian Ross Miller's hard-hitting, no-holds barred answer to these troublesome questions. The redevelopment of Block 37, a richly historic site in the heart of the North Loop, was conceived by Mayor Richard J. Daley, his successors in City Hall, and an astonishingly brazen crew of schemers, speculators, pols, and operators as the way to transform an area of "urban commercial blight" - old, low-rise buildings filled with marginal if not seedy businesses - into a glittering tower that would not only be architecturally worthy of its neighbors (City Hall, Marshall Field's, the State of Illinois Building), but would, with its 2 million square feet of office space, throw off millions of tax and rental dollars annually. For twenty years, through five mayoral administrations, public officials and real estate entrepreneurs of every stripe wheeled and dealed. The three biggest developers in the Midwest were involved; the glamorous architect Helmut Jahn came up with a truly sensational design. "Here's the deal", they all told each other, while the booming eighties steamed ahead. But in the end, when the boom went bust, when credit dried upand downtown office space became the single thing the American city had too much of, then the "deal" was all there was. The ruination of Block 37 is a quintessential Chicago story, and Ross Miller tells it with the passion of a native and the blistering honesty of a classic muck-raker, laying the blame for this debacle squarely at the feet of those who should have cared most for the well-being of a great city. But he goes beyond "location" to show that this is a quintessential American story as well, one that holds important lessons for all of us.

"Though Ross Miller's angry disillusion makes for a lively read, his judgments are often overbroad and the book bogs down in wearisome details of deals and double-crosses among Chicago's big developers. It could have said more about city planners and given wider scope to Ross Miller's eye as an architectural critic."

Economist, 06/15/1996

"Must reading for anyone who cares about America's cities and what keeps them alive...What makes 'Here's the Deal' so instructive are not just the details of back-room wheeling and dealing that relate specifically to Chicago. It's the extent to which Mr. Miller shows how the best-laid plans can go awry in any city--and what gets lost when they do."

Edward Gunts, Baltimore Sun

Here's the Deal: The Buying and Selling of the Great American City: Search Results