Alex Pearlstein

An initiative by the High Point, North Carolina police department has shown results in cleaning up a drug-riddled neighborhood by using "soft" pressure from families and community members to change behaviors.

Atlanta's proposed transit and recreation loop using largely abandoned rail lines as a spur to economic development was dealt a damaging blow as a suburban developer backed out of plans to build condo towers along the line.

Despite a scandal-plagued post-Clinton-Cabinet professional career, Henry Cisneros has emerged as one of the nation's top affordable-housing developers. Now, "traditional" development companies are also edging into the market.

Care to ride a bus shaped like a fish? Sample a new sofa on a rapid-transit train? See locally produced artworks? MARTA's marketing consultant says you might. But the system's riders just want on-time arrivals.

A week after its glowing profile in the New York Times, Atlanta's Beltline project could now be in jeopardy as a suburban developer threatens to sell his critical piece of the proposed transit corridor.