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This kind of analysis not only helps explain why the world looks and operates the way it does; it also points to targets for local and regional action. One problem is gentrification. External forces undermine community-based campaigns that successfully reclaimed abandoned buildings and vacant lots and turned them into livable homes, community centers, gardens, and public parks. A regional equity analysis helps community organizers identify such forces and respond to them.

Such an approach can address the problems of racism and poverty and help build community-based power. It also suggests ways to achieve development without displacement. At the same time, it highlights undemocratic political institutions and processes that foster racial and regional inequities. The fragmented American state (i.e. federalism) allowed racial and regional inequalities to flourish. Such disparities were created and persist in large part because fragmented decision-making structures allow public policy outcomes to disproportionately benefit powerful interests. Moreover, as political power moved to the suburbs-along with population and investment-the anti-urban bias in U.S. public policy grew ever more pronounced. Race and class inequalities in employment, education, crime and punishment, housing, taxation, subsidies, patterns of spending, and service delivery can be directly attributed to the undemocratic distribution of influence within public policy structures. To forge progressive change, it is imperative to frame regionalism explicitly as a democratic project aimed at achieving equity, especially racial equity.

Activists need to think and link regionally. To this end, some democratic regionalists have developed innovative strategies and "tools" that aim to achieve racial and regional equity, and have launched dozens of regional equity campaigns across the U.S.6 Equitable and sustainable economic development is possible only when all stakeholders (or their representatives) sit at the table where key decisions are made, that is, when such decisions are made democratically. This is no easy task. Community organizers must not only locate the tables where decisions are made, they must also inject themselves into decision-making processes. Once there, they can show that effective solutions are not possible without tackling the problem of racism and poverty.

To get to these tables, regional equity advocates employ a variety of creative strategies and tools that include: conducting "equity audits" that literally map where a region's population is, by race and income in relation to resources, opportunities and distress (Institute on Race and Poverty, www.umn.edu/irp); using schematics to identify key institutions and actors that wield decision-making power in various policy areas; and developing innovative legislation in key community-building areas. Take housing for example. Community organizers have crafted inclusionary housing programs and innovative zoning laws that regulate the private housing market, creating nonprofit-owned affordable housing through leveraging market-rate development, and preserve publicly-assisted housing. In addition to defending traditional rent control, regional equity advocates also press for "conversion controls," which attempt to restrict the amount of rental housing that can be converted to owned housing (coops, condominiums, etc.); and they have imposed "transfer taxes"-also known as "anti-flipping" policies-which charge the capital gains made on properties that are bought and re-sold rapidly by speculators who cash in on gentrifying areas without making any improvements (PolicyLink, wwwpolicylink.org). Transfer taxes not only discourage such speculation, they also raise revenue for affordable housing. Through these and other mechanisms, regional equity advocates have obtained vital resources to build and retain thousands of units of affordable housing in communities of color across the U.S.

Activists have also developed other strategies that have proven fruitful in the quest for regional equity. They have wrung funds out of federal, state and local governments-as well as foundations and private corporations-to finance new public transportation; invented revenue schemes to fund new schools and educational programs; developed mechanisms to regulate private development (limiting displacement and environmental damage); promoted job-creation and asset-building in distressed areas; and used new legal strategies (as well as traditional lawsuits) in racial and regional equity campaigns (Dreier et al., 2001). Such strategic interventions have produced gains in many policy areas and in dozens of metropolitan regions.7 For example, the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles organized bus riders into a union and won a lawsuit that expanded bus service into poor and minority neighborhoods, linking them to other parts of the city, county and region (www.thestrategycenter.org). Not only did these changes facilitate the movement of people to jobs; they also moved jobs to people by spurring investment and economic development. The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS)-in collaboration with labor unions, community-based organizations, workforce development institutions (such as community colleges), and some employers-pioneered a "high road" economic development approach that has created and retained jobs and boosted wages, particularly in low-income and minority neighborhoods in Milwaukee. These are but two of many cases.

In addition, community organizers promoting regional equity have successfully pressed suburban-based "smart growth" initiatives and "anti-sprawl" campaigns to take up urban concerns and the interests and input of racial minorities (Stolz & Ranghelli, 2002; Lindstrom & Bartling, 2003). For example, a coalition of interfaith groups in northwest Indiana opposed the development of suburban industries without reinvestment in adjacent older cities, and also successfully pressed for the deconcentration of low- and moderate-income housing (Blackwell et al., 2002: 158). Such multiracial coalitions, with their experience in paying attention to particular members, often deal effectively with the uncomfortable issue of race.

Regional equity advocates are thus shifting the debate about sprawl to include civil rights concerns, by making the link to urban distress (powell, 2000). They are also attempting to create a new table for public policy decision-making: regional governments. Ideally, such bodies could redistribute resources and substantially transform regions. So far, however, the few existing regional governments are relatively weak, and remain tepid on racial issues. While these governments have helped revive portions of urban centers and produced some modest redistribution (primarily through revenue-sharing), they have a long way to go to achieve regional equity.

The potential for regional equity campaigns is vast, but it remains unrealized in many locales. One of the greatest challenges in any such campaign is to promote links between progressives across geographic and cultural spaces. Although viable coalitions have sustained campaigns that have won significant victories, in many jurisdictions sharp divisions-particularly among parts of the working class-continue to thwart regional equity advocates. Initiatives for regional equity cannot be neutral on race and class; they must make race and class explicit and central. Campaigns that remain race-neutral and promote universalistic solutions, even if they do so for strategic reasons so as not to scare off White middle- and upper-class suburbanites, tend to elevate the concerns of the latter at the expense of addressing the plight of working-class urban and minority residents.

Of course, broad political mobilization has been a critical factor in successful efforts at leveraging resources necessary for community-based regional empowerment. Political mobilization remains the greatest asset-and challenge-for regional equity advocates.

Community-based activists need to know what happens in their broader metropolitan region. Progressives in both urban and suburban communities need to "think and link" regionally in order to combat insidious forms of racial sorting that continue to segregate people residentially and malapportion benefits and burdens. The value of regional analysis and action is that they expose inter-connections among people and places, and point to targets that can help community builders form effective strategies and alliances for radical social change. Racial and class equity are critical to making all portions of a region viable and sustainable. Racial equity in particular must become the basis for the sustainability of regions; this entails challenging White supremacy.

Moreover, if cross-jurisdictional solutions are required to address economic and social problems, they will need strong cross- jurisdictional coalitions. Action on a regional scale requires collaboration. Democratic regionalists seek solutions that involve all regional stakeholders rather than inner-city residents alone. This may necessitate forming political alignments among groups who may not believe that they share issues in common, or, even if they believe it, feel little reason to act on it.

Regional-level solutions-particularly at the political level-can address varying kinds of problems that affect different groups. The challenge regionalism poses for community-builders is to forge effective coalitions that make racial and class equity a central part of their everyday operation. Fortunately, recent successes by groups promoting regional equity offer direction and promise. While there is much ground yet to cover, the mobilization of democratic regionalists has begun to reshape the color line-not in the manner of those who push for colorblind policies (such as abolishing affirmative action and bilingual education)-but on their own terms. Community organizers are moving resources to people and people to resources, making regionalism a civil rights issue.

Notes

1. The metaphor of places and people being two sides of the same coin-and their relationship to each other-is similar to descriptions of international development and underdevelopment. See, for example, Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) and Andre Gunder Frank's The Underdevelopment of Development (1996).

2. Throughout this essay, I use "region," "metropolitan region" and "metropolitan area" interchangeably and synonymously. The U.S. Bureau of the Census uses "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (MSAs) to define a metropolitan area by a finite geographic area and number of people within it, often a city of 50,000 people or more, and several additional counties that contain a number of municipalities and suburbs. Approximately 80% of the total population in the U.S. currently resides in metropolitan regions.

3. Myron Orfield, a Minnesota state legislator, effectively "educated" Twin City suburbanites to see that their self-interest is linked to the vitality of cities, thereby making regional equity much more popular (Dreier, et al., 2001; Orfield, 2002). The Portland area of Oregon, for its part, has the nation's only democratically elected regional governing body. Such bodies can make policy across many political jurisdictions on regional matters (e.g., revenue sharing) while leaving other matters to local governments.

4. Gender inequities and the role of sexism are rarely mentioned in regional equity debates, a glaring and significant omission. It must be stated that no project aimed at radical social transformation can be successful without incorporating the issues and participation of women.

5. Massey & Denton, 1993. While suburbs are rapidly diversifying they still remain overwhelmingly White and prosperous, and, on average, score higher than inner cities in nearly every opportunity category, including income, employment, assets, education, health, and crime. Two good overviews of the literature and data are Altschuler et al. (1999), and Dreier et al. (2001).

6. Several national organizations have launched initiatives and campaigns that have borne fruit, including PolicyLink's "Equitable Development Tool Kit" (www.policylink.org); the Institute on Race and Poverty's (IRP), "Racial Justice & Regional Equity Project" (www1.umn.edu/irp); the Aspen Institute Roundtable's Project on Race (www.aspenroundtable.org); the National Community Building Network (www.ncbn.org); the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities (wwwfundersnetwork.org). In addition, dozens of locally based groups have developed regional equity campaigns, including the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles (www.thestrategycenter.org); the Environmental Justice Resource Center in Atlanta (www.ejrc.cau.edu); the Labor Community Advocacy Network in New York (www.lcan.org); and DC Agenda (www.dcagenda.org). Many groups facilitate collaboration among organizations that are engaged in community-level social change work, thus expanding the potential for regional alliances-a critical step in winning regional equity.

7. While no comprehensive list of such campaigns exists, dozens of locales have won substantive regional equity achievements. For information on many of these campaigns, see the websites listed in note 6.

References

Alshuler, Alan, et al. (eds.). 1999. Governance and Opportunity in Metropolitan America. National Research Council, Committee on Improving the Future of U.S. Cities Through Improved Metropolitan Area Governance. National Academy Press.

Benfield, F. Kaid, et al. 1999. Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl is Undermining America's Environment, Economy and Social Fabric. National Resources Defense Council.

Blackwell, Angela Glover, et al. 2002. Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America. New York: W.W. Norton.

Dodge, William R. 1996. Regional Excellence: Governing Together to Compete Globally and Flourish Locally. Washington, D.C. National League of Cities.

Downs, Anthony. 1996. The Challenge of Our Declining Big Cities. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Dreier Peter et al. 2001. Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century. Kansas: Kansas University Press.

Lindstrom, Matthew J., & Hugh Bartling. 2003. Suburban Sprawl: Culture, Theory and Politics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Massey, Douglas, & Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Myers, Phyllis, & Robert Puentes. 2001 "Growth at the Ballot Box: Electing the Shape of Communities in November 2000." Washington D.C: Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

Orfield, Myron. 2002. American Metropolitics. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Pastor, Manuel et al. 2000. Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

powell, jon. 2000. "Addressing Regional Dilemmas for Minority Communities," in Bruce Katz (ed.), Reflections on Regionalism. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Rusk, David. 1993. Cities Without Suburbs. Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Stolz, Rich, & Lisa Ranghelli. 2002. "Community Organizing: A Populist Base for Social Equity and Smart Growth." Livable Communities @ Work, vol. 1, no. 1. Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. (www.fundersnetwork.org).

Swanstrom, Todd. 2001 "What We Argue About When We Argue About Regionalism." Journal of Urban Affairs, vol 23, no. 5.