Distressed neighborhoods in US cities are a product of centuries of systemic inequalities and there is increasing evidence that living in distressed neighborhoods is harmful for children and families. The recent federal place-based initiatives of the Obama Administration aim to revitalize these neighborhoods and their efforts offer great potential for insight about how the federal government can improve the impact of its neighborhood programs. This paper makes recommendations for future federal work to revitalize neighborhoods, with the objectives of building local community development capacity, building collaboration among federal, state, local, and philanthropic stakeholders, and advancing practice and policy through evaluation and research.