Introduction

The inspiration for the conference Linking Regional and Local Strategies to Build Healthy Communities was the debate over how best to improve the opportunities available to low-income urban communities of color. Urban community development, or "in-place" strategies have been responsible for some of the most visible improvements in these communities. Community development corporations and grassroots-based local initiatives have had positive and valuable effects, such as increasing the possibilities for home renovations and new affordable housing development, new business development and commercial revitalization, and improving employment and educational opportunities in countless low-income urban communities of color. Despite these efforts, high unemployment, increasing crime rates, failing schools, deteriorating infrastructure, capital flight, and poverty still plague our urban communities. The intensity of these problems has overwhelmed some of the most valiant efforts to revitalize our cities.

Metropolitan, regional, or "mobility" strategists take another approach. They argue that the most effective way to provide social and economic opportunities to low-income people of color is to move them out of the concentrated environment in which they live. These strategists argue that a high proportion of low-income people living in one area cannot possibly generate the resources needed for greater economic opportunities. Focusing on the negative implications of segregation by race and income, mobility strategists attempt to break down the barriers for low-income people of color to the housing, education, and employment opportunities of middle-class suburban areas. If people concentrated and isolated by race and income are able to move into neighborhoods with adequate community resources, they too will have access to these resources. These strategies use a broader definition of community, and see the future of all the constituents of a metropolitan area as bound together.

Metropolitan and regional strategies must answer, however, to the needs of many diverse communities. Further, even successful mobility strategies leave urban communities in place, often under the same duress as before. The long-term goal is that these communities will not remain concentrated and isolated by race and income. Reaching the goal of making them integrated and viable neighborhoods requires development efforts and dollars. The need for expanded opportunities in these communities makes in-place strategies a necessary complement to mobility strategies. Clearly, proponents of urban and regional strategies must start working together to create comprehensive plans for our cities and metropolitan areas. Needs vary for different areas and different populations, but by collaborating now, and sharing the successes of both strategies, we will be able to more effectively solve the problems in our metropolitan areas. The Institute on Race and Poverty's conference was a significant beginning in the process of making this collaboration a reality.

Practitioners and strategists in both areas participated in the conference, from activists at the neighborhood level to theorists and policy-makers with a national focus. The two-day conference, consisting of speakers, panels, and roundtable discussions, encouraged active audience/panelist interaction. Keynote speakers were David Rusk, former mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico and author of Cities Without Suburbs and Baltimore Unbound; and Ellen Burzynski, Chair of Detroit Development Bancorporation, a subsidiary of Shorebank Corporation. Discussion focused on the areas of wealth creation, housing, economic development, employment, integration, the environment, and land-use planning, and their relationship to regional and urban programs or policies as they affect low-income communities of color. One of the Institute's goals was that participants would leave the conference with a real understanding of when a particular strategy, whether urban or regional in nature, would work in a given situation. However, rather than narrow the focus of participants, we encouraged discussion that would broaden our understanding and problem-solving of issues faced by low-income communities of color, and how the solutions to these problems point the way to a healthier future for us all.