From a reader:

Jonah,
Good discussion on community. While reading that, what I consider a good example from fairly recent history came to mind. Midnight Basketball. If you recall, a local community started a program of night time basketball to keep young people involved in something positive and distracted from seeking “thrills” through anti-social behavior. It worked at the community level. Seeing this a few “geniuses” in Congress decided that a Federally funded program to emulate that success was in order. As usual, Liberals (I prefer to distinguish the self anointed from actual liberal minded folk by the use of the capital L) got it wrong. It wasn’t the entity of the basketball game that was important…………..it was the sense of community, the personal interest shown by the adults toward the youth, that was the “secret” ingredient. Alas another attempt by Liberals to buy results rather than build/earn them.