Michael McColly

From his doorstep, Michael McColly takes readers on an urban pilgrimage of 63 miles through the metropolis of Chicago ending in America's most urban of national parks, the Indiana Dunes. Part memoir, part travel narrative, part environmental reportage, McColly sews together this metropolis as he walks, reflecting on the city's layers of history and its troubling divides as well as muses on his years living in this grand polyglot mecca of the Midwest.  From its grand parks and architecture to its packed sandy beaches, to its polluted neighborhoods called "sacrifice zones" along industrial waterways and rivers, the book asks readers to consider how by walking through a city we cannot turn away from the pressing environmental and social realities of our time. Despite hiking by superfund sites, brownfields, scrapyards, and industrial ruins, McColly discovers the remarkable patterns of urban nature and the surprising beauty found along his path. In the end, McColly's walk is a form of advocacy in that he asks us to witness where we live from the ground, so that we can cherish and revere the multiple histories—human and nonhuman--that shape our cities, our lives, and our planetary future.