The City

3D Model

The City, a new investigative podcast from USA TODAY, tells true stories of how power works in urban America. Season 1 begins in Chicago, 1990. Winter is turning into spring, and in Chicago, that means construction season. After years of disinvestment, highways are rebuilt, old buildings demolished, new skyscrapers erected. All that rubble has to go somewhere, and its destination isn’t a landfill—it’s a pair of vacant lots in a black, working-class neighborhood called North Lawndale. The man behind this operation is a white guy sporting a Cosby sweater and underworld connections. What follows is a tour de force through Chicago’s underbelly: Aldermen get indicted. An FBI investigation goes awry. A community’s resilience is tested—all unfolding under the spectre of racism in America.

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