CC+S chapter in the book Changing Places: How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color (edited by Christopher Edley, Jr. and Jorge Ruiz de Velasco; University of California Press 2010). The book draws attention to the urgent need— both economic and moral—to better understand the policy and community- based factors that serve as incentives or barriers to young men and boys of color as they make critical life decisions. Our chapter investigates the ways in which unhealthy environments — and the urban planning and institutional practices that created them — structure disadvantage and undermine the life chances of young men and boys of color. We then describe how innovative city-school initiatives are aligning and leveraging the diverse elements of the built and social environment to create the trajectories of opportunity this group needs and deserves.