The interdisciplinary study uses an accelerated longitudinal design to follow 11,000 individuals for 8 years each; at the start of the data collection, the 9 birth cohorts ranged in age from 3 to 24 years and included each 3-year interval of age. In addition, data from the 1990 census were used to construct 343 neighborhood clusters with an average population of 8,000 each. Eighty neighborhoods that varied in both race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status were selected. Community characteristics were determined through (1) a community survey of adults in all 343 neighborhoods; (2) systematic social observations by means of videotapes of each block in the 80 neighborhoods; (3) interviews with neighborhood leaders in the selected neighborhoods; and (4) reviews of criminal justice, health, and other records. The data were used to measure factors such as social cohesion, informal and formal social control, and cultural processes. Preliminary results from the first 6,700 interviews of adults have revealed that most of the variance in factors such as informal social control, crime, and police-community relations is explained by neighborhood factors. Crucial factors being studied include concentrated disadvantage, ethnicity, and residential stability. The research will integrate the community data with other data and then with the cohort data to examine why properties of communities are important for both crime rates and individual development. The research is funded by the National Institute of Justice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Questions from the audience, answers from the speaker, and introduction by National Institute of Justice Director Jeremy Travis