The second and expanded edition of this award-winning book provides the most up-to-date and important efforts for improving the quality of life in communities around the world. It focuses on community improvements in relation to the interdisciplinary field of clinical sociology. The first part of the book includes updated analyses of important concepts and tools for community intervention. It discusses the importance of centrally involving community members in all phases of community development activities. Part II includes several completely new chapters and focuses on projects in a number of countries -- the United States, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, the Philippines and France. It covers topics such as establishing human rights cities; involving and empowering local communities; research in communities; the healthy cities movement; and climate change. This edition includes several new gender-focused chapters, addressing local level initiatives based on the recommendations of theCommittee on the Elimination and Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women in prison, and gender factors in climate risk. The appendices include profiles of outstanding practitioners and scholar-practitioners over the last 100 years. This edition includes contributions from well-known scholars and practitioners in clinical sociology and is of interest to sociologists, social policy makers, social workers, and sustainability researchers.  
The first edition of this book received the Distinguished Scholarly Book Award from the Clinical Sociology Division of the International Sociological Association.