Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (1991)
By Joel Garreau

Synopsis: In examining "the biggest change in a hundred years in how we build...cities" (xii), Garreau asks: What American values do Edge Cities embody, and are they places we will ever be proud of? Do Edge Cities really satisfy our longing for the good life? This is a journalistic account, and each chapter focuses on a different city or region, such as Detroit, Atlanta, Texas, Boston, Phoenix, and Southern California. He claims that while the phenomenon is new, they do embody timeless America values like individualism, mobility, and anti-urbanism. Edge Cities are places defined by tons of office and retail space - such as Bishop Ranch and Tyson's Corner, VA. He is undecided as to whether or not edge cities are "real cities," but does note that cities are always shaped by the "cutting edge" transportation of the time, and ECs are clearly shaped by the car. He also notes that cities are always a monument to the worship of something, and that ECs represent a reintegration of home, work, market, etc.

Interacts With:

In saying that ECs represent reintegration, could this then be seen as a counter-modernist plan? But it seems like such cities do not bring things together, they separate and categorize into different pockets of use. Could connect with lots of the pieces on this list, especially those that bemoan a loss of place:
Country of Exiles, Death and Life of Great American Cities, Variation on a Theme Park, J.B. Jackson (which a focus on understanding what's there as opposed to necessarily castigating it)