Not as it is currently conceptualized. Regionalism, after all, is simply a strategy of governmental integration and fiscal equity. Yet racial issues are not simply fiscal. Here are some suggestions. What may work with white suburbanites will definitely not engage city residents of color.
People of color know that race and racism are at the root of the urban crises.
Therefore, in order for a reform effort to be taken seriously, issues of racial discrimination must be addressed directly, with clear measures of success and failure. As the current nationwide protests focused on the New York City police shooting of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year old Guinean street vendor, illustrate, communities of color have consistently organized around police violence, access to education, and employment and housing discrimination. In order to address the relationships among housing, employment, and school segregation, the initiative must establish, empower, and fund multi-jurisdictional agencies with the authority to sanction government and other public and private actors for racial discrimination. The leadership of these agencies must be fearless, unimpeachable, and accountable to specific racial justice goals. This will require that both the racial impact of specific policy proposals and a plan for racial representation on regional planning bodies be well developed and articulated.