During this period, advocates such as Charles Booth and Ebenezer Howard argued for central organized, top-down solutions to the problems of industrializing cities.

"It was a top-down solution," says Mohan Rao, a doctor and public health expert at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Rather, it stems from the initiatives taken by the state or neighborhood in the absence of an effective top-down solution.

The failure of centralized, top-down solutions has been accompanied by a huge upsurge in grassroots political activity everywhere in the United States.

It is a top-down, short-term solution to balance the budget.

The answer, however, is not to wait for a top-down federal solution or simply to spend more money without changes in teaching, learning and accountability.

(The notion that top-down solutions are far more effective than the "think globally act locally" grassroots movement of the 1960s is a running theme).

Maybe it's too late for top-down solutions.

Frustrated by resistance on the street, the 34th Street Partnership is promoting a top-down legislative solution.

But we also can't be paternalistic, with top-down solutions.