What is the purpose of an edge city?
Edge city is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or rural area.
What is the definition for edge cities?
Definition of edge city : a suburb that has developed its own political, economic, and commercial base independent of the central city.
Where do edge cities develop?
An edge city is a term coined by Joel Garreau's in his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, for a place in a metropolitan area, outside cities' original downtowns (thus, in the suburbs or, if within the city limits of the central city, an area of suburban density), with a large concentration of jobs, office ...
What are the characteristics of an edge city?
Characteristics of the Typical Edge CityThe area must have more than five million square feet of office space (about the space of a good-sized downtown)The place must include over 600,000 square feet of retail space (the size of a large regional shopping mall)More items...•
What is an example of an edge city?
Tysons Corner, Virginia, is one of the most famous examples of an edge city. Business environments can exist either within the central business district or outside the city.
What are the challenges of edge cities?
With convenient access and pleasant surroundings, edge cities avoid many inner-city problems. However, critics have noted in them marked class segregation and a diminished sense of community as well as, increasingly, such traditional urban ills as congestion and crime.
Who developed edge city?
Joel GarreauThe term did, indeed, start out as something of a buzz word. Joel Garreau coined it in his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, an account of how America was rebuilding itself at the end of the 20th century.
How is an edge city different from a suburb?
An edge city is a specialized suburb that provides mainly businesses, entertainment, and shopping centers while a suburb tends to be purely residential. Pros include more jobs and the convince of having entertainment, shopping, etc in a city without having to go downtown to a large city such as Chicago.
What are some examples of edge cities that have emerged in the area?
Search for Washington, D.C. ? What are some examples of edge cities that have emerged in the area? [Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, and so on.] ʅ Zoom in to Washington, D.C., and observe the land use patterns. ?
What are the three basic characteristics of a city?
What are the three basic characteristics of a city? Locally elected officials, ability to raise taxes, and responsibility for essential services.
Which of the following is true of an edge city?
Which of the following is true of an edge city? Explanation: Edge cities are secondary commerical centers of urban areas.
What are the main features of city?
It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication.
What are edge cities AP Human Geography?
Edge Cities An edge city is an urban area with a large suburban residential and business area surrounding it. These areas are tied together by a beltway. The edge cities started as suburban areas for those who worked in the central cities.
How is an edge city different from a suburb?
An edge city is a specialized suburb that provides mainly businesses, entertainment, and shopping centers while a suburb tends to be purely residential. Pros include more jobs and the convince of having entertainment, shopping, etc in a city without having to go downtown to a large city such as Chicago.
Is Atlanta an edge city?
In location terms, Atlanta's edge cities occur in the northern suburbs and in the city itself (Figure 2). The downtown/midtown area can be counted as a single edge city.
What are some examples of edge cities that have emerged in the area?
Search for Washington, D.C. ? What are some examples of edge cities that have emerged in the area? [Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, and so on.] ʅ Zoom in to Washington, D.C., and observe the land use patterns. ?
How did edge cities develop?
Starting in the 1950s, businesses were incentivized to open branches in the suburbs and eventually in many cases, leave traditional downtowns entirely, due to increased use of the automobile and move of middle and upper class residents to suburbs , which in turn led to frustration with downtown traffic and lack of parking. Escalating land values in central downtown areas, and the development of communications (telephone, fax, email and other electronic communication) also enabled the trend.
What are edge cities?
Spatially, edge cities primarily consist of mid-rise office towers (with some skyscrapers) surrounded by massive surface parking lots and meticulously manicured lawns, almost reminiscent of the designs of Le Corbusier. Instead of a traditional street grid, their street networks are hierarchical, consisting of winding parkways (often lacking sidewalks) that feed into arterial roads or freeway ramps. However, edge cities feature job density similar to that of secondary downtowns found in places such as Newark and Pasadena; indeed, Garreau writes that edge cities' development proves that "density is back!".
How do edge cities contribute to urban development?
Edge cities contribute greatly to urban development by creating new jobs by attracting workers from the metropolitan areas around it. Also as a result of the rise of edge cities, more department stores, hotels, apartments, and office spaces are created. There are more edge cities than their downtown counterparts of the same size. Garreau states one reason for the rise of edge cities is that, "Today, we have moved our means of creating wealth, the essence of urbanism - our jobs - out to where most of us have lived and shopped for two generations. That has led to the rise of Edge City." In comparison with urban centers edge cities offer global corporations many advantages: cheaper land, security, efficient land communications, advanced technological installations, and a high quality of life for their employees and executives. The appeal of edge cities attract large corporations as well, boosting the already growing city.
How many square feet are edge cities?
Definitions. In 1991, Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city: Has five million or more square feet (465,000 m²) of leasable office space. Has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) or more of leasable retail space. Has more jobs than bedrooms.
Why are edge cities considered a 20th century phenomenon?
As recently as 2003, some critics believed that edge cities might turn out to have been only a 20th-century phenomenon because of their limitations. The residents of the low-density housing areas around them tend to be fiercely resistant to their outward expansion (as has been the case in Tysons and Century City ), but because their internal road networks are severely limited in capacity, densification is more difficult than in the traditional grid network that characterizes traditional CBDs and secondary downtowns. As a result, construction of medium- and high-density housing in edge cities ranges was perceived to be "difficult to impossible". Because most are built at automobile scale, it was felt that "mass transit frequently could not serve them well". Pedestrian access to and circulation within an edge city was perceived to be impractical if not impossible, even if residences are nearby. Revitalization of edge cities was seen to be "the major urban renewal project of the 21st century".
What is Century City?
Century City, an edge city of Los Angeles. Zona Río, 1980s master-planned edge city and largest commercial district in Tijuana, Mexico. Dadeland is sometimes referred to as "downtown Kendall", despite the fact that Kendall is part of unincorporated Miami-Dade County. A special zoning area allowed high rise development in ...
When did edge cities start?
Despite early examples in the 1920s, it was not until car ownership surged in the 1950s, after four decades of fast, steady growth, that it was possible for edge cities to emerge on a large scale. Whereas virtually every American central business district (CBD) or secondary downtown that developed around non-motorized transportation or the streetcar has a pedestrian-friendly grid pattern of relatively narrow streets, most edge cities instead have a hierarchical street arrangement centered on pedestrian-hostile arterial roads, making most of this generation of edge cities difficult to get to and get around with public transportation or by walking, although transit was sometimes added in later decades, such as the Silver Line metro linking Downtown Washington, D.C. with Arlington and Tysons edge cities, and government-planned edge cities in London ( Canary Wharf) and Paris ( La Défense) integrated transit from the start.
Who coined the term "edge cities"?
The term "edge cities" was coined by Washington Post journalist and author Joel Garreau in his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. Garreau equates the growing edge cities at major suburban freeway interchanges around America as the latest transformation of how we live and work.
How many rules did Garreau set for a place to be considered an edge city?
Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city:
What does Garreau mean by edge cities?
Garreau speaks to the history of the edge city: Edge Cities represent the third wave of our lives pushing into new frontiers in this half century. First, we moved our homes out past the traditional idea of what constituted a city. This was the suburbanization of America, especially after World War II .
What is edge city?
Like it or loathe it, the term edge city is one that continues to excite opinions both popular and academic. The phenomenon of edge cities can usefully be situated in a broader historical and geographical context in order that its value and limitations can be appreciated. As a term it may already be too firmly invested with ...
What is the central business district?
The central business district (CBD) is that part of the city which contains the principal commercial streets and main public buildings. Throughout history the CBD has been characterized by a number of land use changes that include industrial, residential, commercial, administration, and consumption.
What strikes one about exurban communities?
What strikes one about exurban communities is the extent to which residents are prepared to restrict their freedoms in order to live there. Specifically, there are a range of regulations related to the maintenance of environmental esthetics: residents have a very limited palette from which to choose a color for their homes; planting schemes for gardens are prescribed, and gardens must be maintained to a high standard; garbage can only appear on certain days; and certain activities usually associated with street life such as ball games and car maintenance are also often forbidden. In the nonresidential environments of these communities, behavioral restrictions also apply, including ordinances on inappropriate apparel and accepted codes of conduct. At first glance this might appear to be a heavy-handed hegemonic strategy, easy to identify, and thereby resist (and indeed there are a growing number of youth subcultures emerging in these communities). It is, however, no different from cultural politics operated by subordinate groups. These restrictions are all directed toward maintaining the image of the community through environmental management practices. A defined set of environmental values are being enacted in middle-class cultural politics in these cities, just as a differently defined set of environmental values form the cultural politics of more ‘radical’ ecological groups. Cultural politics is not the preserve of the young and dispossessed, they form the core set of values which inform actions in the world and make everyday geographies.
Is the outer suburbs attracting the new global economy jobs?
However, the processes are not at present favouring the automobile city areas in Australian cities. The outer suburbs are not attracting the new global economy jobs or any of the associated denser housing. It is necessary in social justice terms to recognise that the outer suburbs need help in their urban design. If they cannot build sub-centres that are attractive in human terms – i.e., are walkable, with a good transit base – they will continue to decline. With planning assistance it is possible to redevelop viable, walking centres as strategic redevelopment areas in the middle and outer suburbs.
Is urbanization happening in all cities?
Across all the cities in our study there is a process of re-urbanisation developing ( Newman and Kenworthy, 1999, 2000 ). Nearly all cities are increasing in density. In US cities this has mostly occurred in outer area ‘edge cities’ although most of its cities have strong walking city centres that are the highest valued real estate and which are undergoing significant revitalisation ( Gratz, 1989 ).
Is suburban development an urban development?
Any suburban development which seeks to combine the rural and the urban is, by its very nature, always in danger of becoming entirely urban. London’s Victorian semidetached villas, once apart from the city are now very much a part of it. Later developments, although much farther from the center, have been profoundly influenced by increasing car ownership and use and the suburbanization of industry. As cities have sprawled, so have subcenters of commerce and entertainment developed in suburban areas. Indeed as Ed Soja argues, based on the experience of LA, it may be that polycentric suburbia is the new city. In an attempt to capture some of the economic and social changes that are occurring in suburbia, terms such as technoburb, exurb, and edge city have been employed. These are united by the concept of the suburb as becoming progressively more separate from its old, core-city center and more urban in its own right.
What is an edge city?
An edge city is a suburban area that has all the features of a city. The following are defining characteristics of an edge city.
What is the future of edge cities?
The Future of Edge Cities. As edge cities age they may develop a culture, social capital and more democratic processes. For example, Tokyo has dozens or perhaps hundreds of downtown-like areas in suburban locations. However, many of these are reasonably old and have developed a unique character over time.
How much retail space does an edge city have?
An edge city attracts more shoppers than its local population and has at least half a million square feet of retail space.
How can edge cities compete with primary cities?
Edge cities can only compete with a primary city by offering lower prices for office space, retail space and homes.
What is edge city?
Edge cities and urban sprawl name not only socio-spatial phenomenon extant in the shifting metropolitan landscapes of the United States (and to some degree the globe) but also purported paradigm shifts in urban development more generally. For Teaford 1997, the special economic agglomerations known as edge cities signify significant shifts and recombinations in regional political economies. Some conceptual specificity is provided by journalist Garreau 1991, whose extended explication of the edge city concept begins with the assertion that the sprawling, differentiated spatial form of Los Angeles has become the dominant city-building paradigm, propelled by the economic engines provided by edge city commercial nuclei. Great concentrations of retail and office activities, Garreau argues that edge cities developed in the latter half of the 20th century, usually along transit corridors at the outskirts of US metropolitan areas. Lang 2003 and Lang and LeFurgy 2007 both build upon and critique Garreau’s concept, positing yet further novel spatial forms. For Lang 2003, apprehending metropolitan economic shifts requires the companion concept “edgeless cities,” or more diffused spatial patterns of office activity. For Lang and LeFurgy 2007, “boomburgs”—rapidly growing cities not previously considered the core cities of their respective regions—are the parallel entity. Far from inconsequential, Harris and Vorms 2017 and Walker 1994 both emphasize the significance of conceptualizing urban peripheries, both for furthering understanding and for effecting change. Together, edge cities, edgeless cities, boomburgs, and other spatial developments form a general pattern of urban sprawl as explored by Duany, et al. 2010; Gutfreund 2004; and Kuntsler 1993. In a departure from familiar characterizations, Bruegmann 2005 places sprawl in a larger spatial and temporal context, and argues for its positive as well as negative societal impacts.
What is a boomburg?
Based on residential population data from the US census, these authors define “boomburgs” as “an incorporated suburban city with at least 100,000 in population, as not the core city of their region, and as having double digit population growth in each census since 1970” (p. 6). Their work highlights suburban growth in places with little cultural, economic, or political profile outside their immediate regional contexts.
What is Garreau's idea of an edge city?
It is argued that the employment of geographical information systems (GIS) will enable new forms of planning which have a degree of flexibility and responsiveness not found in traditional planning systems. Electronic networks can help to democratise a planning system and to generate plans which transcend the administrative boundaries of older cities. Greater integration between physical planning and the free market may also be possible. The argument is illustrated with reference to practice in the Paris region, the Netherlands, Belgium and the South England Edge City (SEEC).
What is gateway city theory?
The theory of gateway cities constitutes one of the most important tools to researches of the functional-genetic location patterns of cities changeability. In the typology of location patterns it should be arranged among models of both concentration and specialization as well. The conception of gateway centers after long time, when it was considered in descriptive categories, became in the 70's subject to attempts of methodological verification. The most important significance gained here works of A. F. Burghardt (1971) and J. Bird (1973, 1977). Works of both geographers concerned some crucial aspects: • attempts of arrangement of gateway cities type in general stratification of aggregated location patterns of cities (Bird, 1973, 1977); • the indication of dynamics of gateway type pattern in the context of progressive settlement, (Burghardt, 1971, Bird, 1973, 1977); • the indication of selective functions in a settlement type in subject (Burghardt, 1971). The theory met with some critical reviews, what doubtless influences the profitably also on further conceptualization of described type of gateway cities. This article draws up the basic foundations and evolution of methodological conceptions. It seems that last two decades did not bring significant progress of considerations over this problem. Still there is a need of wider glance at the role of gateway cities in classification of the aggregated location patterns. Author of this article postulates separation of gateway cities patterns from superior units (patterns with appearing specialization and patterns with appearing concentration). "Triangulisation" applied in typology of J. Bird (1977) is not completely right. Another important element, which demands still some numerous researches, is attempted to define of selective functional specification for cities of considered type. These typologies should take into account differences both of time and in analyzed space as well. The works of both theoreticians of considered gateways are in this regard really at initial stage. The last element of researches, which has been already mentioned, is extremely essential need to catch the spatial-functional and intra-urban structures in framework of separated out general classifications of gateway cities.
What are the key issues in urban locational patterns?
Three principal research areas in the geography of settlements are: (1) urban networks and urban systems, (2) studies on functional structures of towns, (3) geographical-historical approach to urban settlement . In the introduction a crucial role of locational patterns in anthropogeography and economics is indicated. Among others, in the last decade the return to he methodology and conceptualisation of the issue has been noticed in foreign literature in economic geography [Hall, Krugman, Krugman et al., Sassen]. In addition, a relationship between locational patterns of towns and genotypes of town has been identified, whereas the genotype was associated with the initiation of locational patterns of towns. This is followed by critical review of some specific models and conceptions concerning the issue of functionalism in the analysis of urban locational patterns, with particular reference to Harris and Ullman [1945], Whebell [1969], Bird [1977] and Simmons [1978]. The last part includes an attempt of typology of investigated locational patterns, which takes into account the state-of-the-art in the geography of settlement, its critical verification in geographical literature, and the author's own empirical research on the functional genesis of urban locational patterns on the territory of Poland. A novelty is an introduction of a mixed type locational pattern, which includes superimposition of some elements of central and specialized patterns. The typology offered in the paper is presented in order to agree on terminology and to place it on proper analytical levels.
Do contemporary communications cumulatively undermine the city, culminating in its end?
Do contemporary communications cumulatively undermine the city, culminating in its end? Peter Hall's survey of the available evidence lends support to the claim for the continuing relevance of agglomeration as the “urban glue”. He explores the extent to which telecommuting supplements rather than supercedes face‐to‐face interaction. The classification of urban forms requires, Hall argues, the updating and modification but not the displacement of traditional theories of location. The city survives, then, but Hall's account of urban polarization—a continuing concern of City, which he touches on but does not develop—suggests that it may not be in good health.
Characteristics of An Edge City
How Do Edge Cities develop?
- Most of the edge cities sprout in freeway intersections which need planning or are near existing cities. They develop better when this intersection exists near a major public airport. Heavy industry and manufacturing activities are a rarity in edge cities at the time of their development. Numerous edge cities have come up in the United States. They...
The Effect of Edge Cities
- Edge cities are a result of decentralization of people and resources which began in the 1960s. There has been an evident shift in socioeconomic activities leading to reduced competition for jobs and services. The scenario here has caused a lot of debate by economists on whether "people follow jobs or jobs follow people". Edge cities have led to withdrawal of workers from th…
Overview
Edge city is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or rural area. The term was popularized by the 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while working as a reporter for The Washington Post. Garreau argues that the edge city has become th…
Impact of edge cities
The emergence of edge cities has not been without consequences to the metropolitan areas they surround. Edge cities arise from population decentralization from large major core cities and has been ongoing since the 1960s. Shifts in socioeconomics in metro areas (including rising real estate prices during periods of stagnant wages), location of metro industrial areas, and labor competition between edge cities and their more central neighbors have been attributed to their d…
Definitions
In 1991, Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city:
• Has five million or more square feet (465,000 m²) of leasable office space
• Has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) or more of leasable retail space
• Has more jobs than bedrooms
Density and cityscapes
Spatially, edge cities primarily consist of mid-rise office towers (with some skyscrapers) surrounded by massive surface parking lots and meticulously manicured lawns, almost reminiscent of the designs of Le Corbusier. Instead of a traditional street grid, their street networks are hierarchical, consisting of winding parkways (often lacking sidewalks) that feed into arterial roads or freeway ramps. However, edge cities feature job density similar to that of secon…
History
Garreau shows how edge cities developed in a U.S. context. Starting in the 1950s, businesses were incentivized to open branches in the suburbs and eventually in many cases, leave traditional downtowns entirely, due to increased use of the automobile and move of middle and upper class residents to suburbs, which in turn led to frustration with downtown traffic and lack of parking. Escalating land values in central downtown areas, and the development of communications (tele…
Problems of edge cities
Edge cities planned around freeway interchanges have a history of suffering severe traffic problems if one of these freeways goes unbuilt. In particular, Century City, a pioneering 1960s edge city built on former 20th Century Fox backlot in western Los Angeles, was built with long-term plans for access via an urban rail system and the planned Beverly Hills Freeway. Neither project ever came to fruition, resulting in massive congestion on the surface streets connecting Centur…
Edge cities in the 21st century
Today, many edge cities have plans for densification, sometimes around a walkable downtown-style core, often with a push for more accessibility by transit and bicycle, and addition of housing in denser, urban-style neighborhoods within the edge city. For example at Tysons, in the Washington, D.C. metro area, the plan remains to see the city become the downtown core of Fairfax County. To this point "…eight districts have been delimited, with four centered on new me…
See also
• Bedroom community
• Boomburbs
• List of edge cities
• Urban sprawl
Characteristics of An Edge City
- Some rules to follow for what can be considered an edge city were outlined by Garreau in 1991. The first rule was that the area should occupy a vast space of at least five million square feet or 465,000 square meters. Furthermore, the area of land should be in a leasable office space. Secondly, the leasable retail space should be at least 56,000 square meters or 600,000 square f…
How Do Edge Cities develop?
- Most of the edge cities sprout in freeway intersections which need planning or are near existing cities. They develop better when this intersection exists near a major public airport. Heavy industry and manufacturing activities are a rarity in edge cities at the time of their development. Numerous edge cities have come up in the United States. They...
The Effect of Edge Cities
- Edge cities are a result of decentralization of people and resources which began in the 1960s. There has been an evident shift in socioeconomic activities leading to reduced competition for jobs and services. The scenario here has caused a lot of debate by economists on whether “people follow jobs or jobs follow people”. Edge cities have led to withdrawal of workers from th…