Edge city

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.

They often are not separate legal entities but are governed as part of surrounding counties (this is more often the case in the East than in the Midwest, South, or West).

[7] 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.

[10] 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.

[12] New Center and the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles are considered the earliest automobile-oriented urban forms.

In the cases of London and Paris he notes how these edge cities developed with government planning and with integrated public transportation.

Neither project ever came to fruition, resulting in massive congestion on the surface streets connecting Century City to existing freeways, every two miles (3 km) distant.

More than a half-century later, the D Line subway extension will finally provide rail access, with Century City/Constellation station planned to open in 2025.

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.

[18] Edge cities contribute greatly to urban development by creating new jobs by attracting workers from the metropolitan areas around it.

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.

Through Garreau, the term edge city has provided information on how corporate players remain important to the strength of urban and regional subsets.

The corporate offices fill in space in edge cities and provide connections to exterior locations if decisions are being made from those locales.

[23] Edge cities may create a significant growth in sophisticated retail, entertainment, and consumer service facilities, which in turn leads to a rise in local employment opportunities.

There is usually a development commission or similar organization that operates in parallel to, and interact with standard city, county, and state government institutions.

According to authors Phelps and Dear, these "shadow governments can tax, legislate for, and police their communities, but they are rarely accountable, are responsive primarily to wealth (as opposed to numbers of voters), and subject to few constitutional constraints”, as "edge cities have had substantial investments placed in them".

[24][25] In most cases a ‘privatopia’ is formed within edge city residential areas, where the private housing developments are administered by homeowner associations.

Aerial view of Bellevue, Washington , a typical edge city with a large amount of office and retail space
La Défense , an edge city of Paris
The Rosslyn – Ballston corridor in Arlington County near Washington, D.C.
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 the area consisting mostly of single family homes.
Tysons, Virginia is an edge city of Washington, D.C. whose rapid urbanization has been aided by the extension of the Washington metro Silver Line , which opened four stops in Tysons in 2014.