Edge City

Joel Garreau proposed a discussion about edge cities in order to stress a radical change in the American urban and suburban landscape. These settlements are literally located on the edge of some metropolitan areas. There are no railway lines but a network of roads and highways, there are neither monuments nor historic city centers but business space and shops, there are neither squares nor parks but walk- ways of shopping malls and the gardens of office headquarters. The residential part is relatively limited and there are neither high-class lofts nor working neighborhoods; single-family houses with gardens are the most frequent residential units. Garreau suggested five definitional criteria for individuating edge cities: • 5 million or more square feet (465,000 m2) of leasable office space • 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) or more of leasable retail space • more jobs than bedrooms • perceived by the population as one place • nothing like a“city”asrecently as 30 years ago. A paradigmatic example of edge city is Tysons Corner in Virginia.Nothingmorethanajunction of country roads until the Second World War, it experienced a big and fast development since the 1950s. Business clearly plays a main role in the edge city, as well as commercial services, consumption, and entertainment activities. The dimension of exclusivity also emerges if we focus on their structure and architecture. At the same time, the “myth of privatopia” is probably part of these settlements. Another characteristic of many edge cities, especially in the United States, is the fact they are not politically independent entities.As regards future directions for edge city studies, it is probably useful to focus again on Tysons Corner. The significance of transport has been important and, very probably, this trend will continue. Bringing housing into balance with jobs is a critical factor for the future of edge cities. There is a further complication, however: Their extended network of roads makes a densification process more difficult than has occurred in other subur- ban areas. Edge cities were born as settlements made for cars, and the space for pedestrians and residents will probably remain limited.