Infrastructure improvements are being made, through joint public and private-sector efforts.

"The icon is the visual cue to get to online resources, to online media, and to unified nutrition messages from public- and private-sector efforts."

When Mr. Bush announced the private-sector effort in a Rose Garden ceremony, foundation officials talked confidently of raising $200 million to finance 20 to 30 projects.

Some experts are not fully convinced that small-scale private-sector efforts can make a significant difference.

The program, she said, organizes a variety of public and private-sector efforts that get their money elsewhere.

"But this is a private-sector effort, no question about that, a private sector effort that was in response to a challenge laid out by the Mayor."

These issues are currently being debated and, in many cases, addressed by private-sector and federal efforts.

In 1995, he spoke against a private-sector effort to harmonize customs and immigration laws between Canada and the United States of America.

Together, those agreements created 5,300 apartments citywide, and private-sector and other efforts added about 15,000 more.

Such private-sector efforts may be all the more important if federal initiatives aimed at closing the digital divide are indeed cut back.