Margery al Chalabi was born in a small working-class town in the Allegheny River Valley of Pittsburgh. The first member of her extended family to attend college, she put herself through with scholarships and part-time work, earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1961. She studied at Athens Technological Institute (ATI) in Athens, Greece, receiving an MSc in Urban Planning and Regional Economics, in 1965. In Athens, Margery met Suhail al Chalabi, a fellow student at ATI, an architect from MIT, and the love of her life. They married in 1965; returned to the U.S.; and found interesting work in Chicago. Starting out at the Chicago regional office of HUD and City of Chicago, Margery extended her work on renewal and redevelopment with private consulting firms, conducting landmark work on these issues for HUD and other federal agencies; and with architectural firms planning downtown development in major cities. Suhail worked for Chicago's two regional agencies: NIPC and CATS, as a senior official. Later, both served in the administration of Mayor Jane M. Byrne, Chicago's first female mayor. When Chicago won the 1992 World's Fair, they collaborated on writing the City's Comprehensive Plan, Chicago 1992. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.