According to a 2011 report, Next Generation Community Revitalization: A Work in Progress, the Bridgespan Group emphasizes the risk and fragility of such efforts:
"When we look at the long history of urban redevelopment and, more recently, community change strategies, especially those focused on economically vulnerable and ethnically marginal populations, we have to acknowledge that they represent abundant evidence of failure...the long shadow cast by the past tends to be especially problematic in neighborhoods where the failure to deliver on ambitious promises, the divide between residents and reformers, and the top-down, non-inclusive way in which change initiatives were introduced and executed have left a wake of distrust with which new efforts have to contend. Distrust can be overcome...But it takes time (often more time than initiative horizons or an impatient society are willing to allow), as well as superb leadership skills and a genuine commitment to authentic community engagement."
