The startling story of how American cities emerge, grow, change, contract, decay, and become resuscitated. With keen insight, the authors analyze urban social processes, such as population migration to suburbia and the effect of foreign capital investment on U.S. real estate ventures. Examining patterns in the location, development, financing, and construction decisions of small and large corporations, the book looks at the interplay of industrial and development corporations with various levels of government. In addition to political aspects, it reflects on the social costs of unbridled urban growth and decline, pollution, wasted energy, congestion, and the negative impact on minorities. But above all, it is the story of people, powerful key developers such as Trump, Moses, Levitt, Reichmann, and Hines and the major role they have played in reshaping our cities, and courageous citizens who resisted some of their actions with tenacity and conviction. It is a volatile story of social conflict that rends the very fabric of our society and in the end gives shape to our urban centers.