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...