Postcard: A Suburb Hopes for One More Delay at O'Hare

When the people left, the animals moved in. Deer, skunks and rabbits creep through the streets of Bensenville, Ill., a blue collar community nestled against the edge of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Rows of houses, a few still ribboned with Christmas lights, lie empty, their doors boarded up. Low-flying jets pierce the silence. Police still patrol for vandals, and contractors tend to unkempt lawns, but in the fading afternoon light, parts of this eerie village resemble a ghost town.

The exodus from Bensenville was spurred not by decay but by development. The suburb squats in the crosshairs of a $15 billion plan to ease gridlock at O'Hare, the world's second busiest hub, by adding more parallel runways. For the past three years, the O'Hare Modernization Program (OMP) has been gobbling up land in a 300-acre (120 hectare) "acquisition area" that comprises about 15% of the village. Ninety-five percent of the neighborhood's 542 homes are plastered with signs proclaiming them Chicago property.

Though the OMP paid market prices for the homes and businesses it acquired and assisted residents with relocation, the area's 28 remaining homeowners are refusing to move--and seething at the plan's champion, Chicago mayor Richard Daley. "The city's pitch was, We're going to take your home one way or another," says Joseph Karaganis, Bensenville's attorney. "Sell voluntarily, or we'll take you to court to condemn your property." Daley, says 25-year resident Roberta Baird, "is like the bully on the playground who wants all the toys."

Bensenville was founded in 1884 after Chicago cemented itself as the nexus of the nation's railroads, and it hasn't strayed far from its middle-class roots. Despite its modest homes, the village offers residents perks like free transportation to doctors' offices and a Father's Day fishing derby. Locals tout its safety, schools and affordable living standards. "I don't want to leave the town, and I don't intend to," insists Arlene Benson, 83.

By Chicago's calculation, Bensenville is a necessary casualty. "This is a project of national significance," says Rosemarie Andolino, the OMP's executive director, who rattles off the airport-expansion plan's hefty benefits: up to 195,000 new jobs, an annual $18 billion boost in economic activity and the potential to slash average passenger delays at one of the country's most congested airports from 24 min. to 5 min.

Her message seems to be resonating: scores of nearby communities favor revamping O'Hare. But Bensenville president John Geils--citing cost overruns and a funding shortfall--argues that part of his village is being gutted for a runway that "has absolutely no chance of being built." Further, he notes that increasing capacity just as soaring fuel prices nudge the aviation industry into a tailspin may be a fool's errand. (Andolino maintains that construction is on track: in November, O'Hare will unveil its first new runway since 1971.)

While residents call their fight a David-vs.-Goliath battle, the village may soon be forced to pocket its slingshot. Last month a county judge dissolved an injunction that had prevented Chicago from razing the acquisition area until the environmental impact could be measured. Unless an appeals court steps in as Bensenville's 11th-hour savior, the path is clear for the bulldozers to start rolling. And while 14 million cubic yd. (11 million cubic m) of dirt have already been moved in the reclamation, a small plot of sacred soil continues to stoke debate: the project's footprint covers the 1,300 graves in St. Johannes Cemetery, which the city says it will be forced to unearth. The forecast for the 159-year-old site darkened in May when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Amid these legal skirmishes, neighborhood holdouts vow not to be strong-armed out of the community where they nurtured careers and families. "How can [Chicago] come in here and say, 'I'm taking your home?'" asks longtime resident Gail Flores. "This is America."

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