Narrator Hedrick Smith focuses on the Alliance of Concerned Men, a group of former offenders and drug users who are now reaching out to juvenile offenders and fathers in prison to try to prevent their further involvement in drugs or crime. Another segment focuses on two school-based programs, Wider Horizons at Draper Elementary School and the Public Service Academy at Anacostia High School. These programs use mentors and extensive job internships to achieve test scores above the national average and a graduation rate of 94 percent in an area with a 40-percent dropout rate. Other segments focus on a public housing project that is focusing on rehabilitating its tenants rather than its buildings, a successful effort to attract the middle class back to an area heavily affected by the crack epidemic of the 1980's, and an economic program that has led to the redevelopment of a shopping area and the opening of new businesses.