For the middle class and the affluent, local ties seem to matter less and less these days, but in the inner city, your life can be irrevocably shaped by what block you live on. "Living the Drama" takes a close look at three neighborhoods in Boston to analyze the many complex ways that the context of community shapes the daily lives and…

Several years ago the author began visiting a number of families and children in the poor black section of Boston called Roxbury. But unlike many social scientists studying poverty in recent years, he listened--in particular to the thoughts, hopes, fears, and dreams of two fifth graders--William D. Williams and Adrien Keller. Here these two black…