In recent years, concerned governments, businesses and civic groups have launched ambitious programmes of community development designed to halt, and even reverse, decades of urban decline. But while massive amounts of effort and money are being dedicated to improving the inner-cities, two important questions have gone unanswered: can community development actually help solve long-standing urban problems? And, based on social science analyses, what kinds of initiatives can make a difference? This book surveys what we currently know and what we need to know about community development's past,...

Through the life stories of highly successful people, this book uncovers a common formula in the parenting that extraordinary achievers experience beginning in early childhood.