Since 1971, Bob Thall has taken photographs which examine and interpret Chicago's urban landscape. continuing his project to photograph the metropolitan area, this volume presents a picture of the area around Schaumburg and O'Hare International Airport which represents a new type of suburb - the "edge city". Thall seeks to capture four components of the edge city - corporate, commercial, domestic and environmental. He offers photographs of remnants of open land and farm structures, the process of clearing and construction, corporate headquarters, townhouse developments, model homes, office parks, strip malls and the many aspects of nature that remain, in one way or another, in these miniature cities. Documenting these new American places, Thall draws attention to the choices being made when they are built and discovers some unexpected transformations. In an industrial park built where there was once only flat fields of corn, he is surprised to find innumerable small lakes and ponds created by developers for flood control. Along with these scenes, Thall discovers much he finds emotionally chilling: a landscape with no pedestrian life, no old trees and little diversity in architecture or people. His images capture the vast suburban world where, in ever-increasing numbers, Americans are choosing to spend their lives.