Can block clubs block despair? Why do some poor communities fall apart while others cohere? Community organization can make a difference--up to a point.

ONE BRIGHT SPRING MORNING, Peter St. Jean set out on an unusual scholarly expedition. St. Jean is a sociologist at the University of Buffalo who studies the relationship between concentrated poverty and crime. He drives a maroon Nissan Pathfinder, which that morning he'd loaded up with video cameras, two mounted On tripods and pointed out the rear side windows and one more up front, fastened with Velcro to the center of the dashboard.

"This way we'll see every angle," explained St. Jean, a 39-year-old man of Caribbean origin with a shaved head, thick, muscular arms, ...

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