James DeFilippis is a professor at Rutgers University. His concentration of planning and public policy deals with community land trusts and alternative forms of housing tenure. Susan Saegert has taught as a professor in the subjects of Environmental Psychology as well as Human and Organizational Development. It is interesting to note that the authors discuss the idea of a community not being envisioned in an urban setting. In theory, cities are meant to be controlled by economic and bureaucratic governance with no other interactions that would interfere with the workings of an urban environment. And yet, communities have made their presence known, a reaction to fight for their human rights. While capitalist and bureaucratic interests look at the bigger picture to develop the city, the individuals experience what affects them on a day-to-day basis. A community development hopes to improve their quality of life and make their issues known to the government. The authors make it a point to emphasize that the quality of life is directly correlated to the success of the city, both economically and socially. Thus it is a good strategy to address a community problem, although, this is not generally realized.

The translation of these issues from community to government is what Alice O’Connor addresses in her chapter. Alice O’Connor is a professor at Johns Hopkins University with publications that deal with the privatization of cities and urban inequality. There is no way to create an organized and efficient plan for community development because of the red tape and legal regulations that counteract any action. The city regulations themselves have produced the problems of segregation, displacement, and suburbanization. The only way to solve this is to create effective laws that assess and directly impact communities in a small scale method.