The third neighbourhood management conference offers an up-to-the-minute progress report. It reviews the policy framework, giving a platform both to neighbourhood management executives and to independent observers. It looks at the many different delivery mechanisms, asking if they will succeed where many of their predecessors failed. It focuses upon some of the specific problems of deprived communities, assessing whether neighbourhood renewal is overcoming them. It opens the floor to some hands-on practitioners, hearing whether there is a new climate of optimism on the frontline.