Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

by Joel Garreau

According to Joel Garreau, we are in the middle of the biggest change in 100 years in how we live, work, and play--and most of us don't even know it. By moving our jobs out to the suburbs where we live and shop, we have created Edge Cities. Garreau has spent three years visiting Edge Cities and presents a groundbreaking book about who we are, how we got that way, where we are headed and what we value.

Genres: Urban Planning, Nonfiction, Urbanism, Urban, Cities, Urban Studies, Geography

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago, before I started graduate school for a degree in City Planning. I just returned form several weeks in Southern California, LA - visiting son and daughter and law and then in Arizona, Scottsdale specifically to see some Frank Lloyd Wright stuff, Taliesin West, the Arizona Biltmore and the David and Gladys Wright House and visit a cousin that I have not seen for several years.

I reread the chapters on Southern California - Community, Phoenix - Shadow Government, since I just experienced them and then the Chapter on Atlanta - The Color of Money, spent time there over the XMAS holdays and of course my favorite city, Detroit - The Automobile, Individualism and Time which I visited last May.

Trust me, you really don't want to know what James Howard Kunstler of CLUSTERFUCK NATION fame thinks of Edge City. After suburbia, Edge City is probably the greatest misallocation of resources in Amerika - that and the Military-Industrial-Complex.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure. This is a really tough book to review, because there is such a wide gap between the physical contents of the book and all the post-release connotations/adaptations of the term “edge city”. If we are being honest, the latter certainly shines brighter than the former, but surely some of that must come from the book…

Anyways, Garreau has provided a rather suburban style of book, with lot of page space containing rather sparse bursts of content intertwined with lots & lots of primary sources. His journalist connections provide readers with multiple lengthy interviews with major power brokers across his diverse selection of metro areas, 9 in all (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Houston/Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington). Within each of these case studies, Garreau highlights the primary edge cities of the metro and then different distinguishing features of that metro that highlight broader edge city trends (eg the automobile for Detroit, racism for Atlanta, history for DC).

The book also contains a ….generous…. appendix with a list of edge cities, important vocab terms, and phrases used by developers. Each chapter begins with a map of that metro area and identified edge cities (as well as emerging ones). Despite the page length, it is a relatively quick read. Chapters are given appropriate lengths, the decision to make DC a detailed case study is aided by the chunking out of that chapter. The ordering is sensical and none of the metros feel unnecessary (though I find it strange that Detroit is the only Midwestern metro).

The aforementioned qualities are all things I absolutely praise in other books, but here they almost feel like rubbing salt in the wound that is the rest of this book.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not bad, but it is certainly not what I was hoping for. There is a certain tendency for “pop academic” works to have an academic writer overly water down the material to appeal to a general audience, compromising the content using a style they clearly are not as well versed in. I think Garreau does the opposite here in Edge Cities.

I don’t mean to insult Garreau, he seems to be a good reporter who correctly identifies relevant power brokers to interview, but he is not an academic… Within any nonfiction work, the writer should be cognizant of the portion of the book containing primary material from original sources and original critical analysis. Different pieces require different ratios, but you usually don’t want to have a situation where the primary heavily outweighs the original, especially when the premise of the book is to develop a new and original concept. I think you can see where this is going…

There will just be pages and pages of Garreau entertaining these goofy figures from across the country, perhaps to highlight the subtle absurdity of the edge city, but I think more so out of a deference to his journalistic style. This is not to universally condemn that style, but I don’t think it works here. Garreau consistently fails to critically analyze the contentious views he presents throughout the metros; furthermore, he does not seem to gather their views on the concept of an edge city (with the exception of the New York chapter).

Speaking of Edge City, Garreau’s definition sucks. Despite not being an academic, his definition is way too wonky and specific. There is no other major urban term broadly understood with such a specific technocratic definition. Also, much like the rest of this book, the “wasn’t here 30 years ago” aspect of the definition necessarily makes his concept/definition outdated. Yea, you can really tell this was late 80s and early 90s. Additionally, I am partial to Robert Lang’s assessment of Garreau, in that it is likely several of the edge cities he identifies doesn’t actually fit his specific technocratic definition. San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and one of the 10 largest in the country, it’s not an Edge City. Additionally, Tyson’s Corner; the Galleria’s; and Phoenix’s Urban Villages would likely be offended in being lumped in the same category as several of the other “edge cities” on his list.

However, I hesitate to further my harshness because of what came from this book. I don’t contest the existence of Edge Cities (particularly of the Tyson’s Corner/Galleria nature), and Garreau deserves credit for the original formulation and distribution. I have issues with his definition, but the faults are understandable given the context of the writing (also I am likely spoiled from better definitions from decades of hindsight). Cities are undergoing much more complicated patterns of development that no longer just include an urban/rural dichotomy, and are even veering from the urban transect. I think Edge Cities are one of many useful concepts to help us make sense of this messy web of bloated development. After all, if it is good enough for Mike Davis to include in his urban models, surely it must be good.

Finally, I should mention the sensibilities of the author. Garreau has a sense of humor of someone who loves thinking about all these cities, but doesn’t quite have that deep critical urban lens. Which is totally fine for a journalist, but not my style of humor (though I can see why a lot of people really picked up on it).

It is a 5 star concept, but I can’t give the book itself more than 3. For those interested in these concepts, and wanting a deeper understanding of the late 20th century intricacies of the ever Inter-tangling American urban web, I recommend Robert Lang’s Edgeless Cities, he does a phenomenal job clarifying the distinction between old urban, old suburban, edge, and Edgeless cities.

Still, this book has its historical place, and probably deserves to be the most read book by Garreau on GoodReads :)

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for understanding why and how cities in the U.S. are expanding with seeming reckless abandon. An evenhanded and levelheadeded journalistic account, Garreau takes us around the country to survey booming metropolises. In each, we survey a different aspect of the growth of the country. In Atlanta, how development is effected by racial issues, in Detroit, the impact of the car, in New York/New Jersey, the need for a new frontier away from a cramped and in some ways outmoded inter city, and so on.

Despite being more than twenty years old, the book is still surprisingly relevant, as the edge cities he described are continuing to boom in a similar fashion today. As someone who has experienced a good chunk of the confusion at the oddities of some of the places he describes such as Phoenix, Seattle and Texas, it is clear that the hodgepodge mishmash of high rises next to strip malls and corn fields is going to continue for better or worse. The book lays out in clear terms the economic incentives for our current growth patterns and highlights some unexpected positives along with numerous weaknesses our current development pattern exposes us too.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding a shockingly optimistic description of the spread of suburban office parks and malls, an affliction of modern America, in the introduction, I almost gave up on this book. But, deciding to approach the book as a historical document, a look back on an America of 30 years ago, I pressed on.

It ended up being surprisingly thoughtful. This reporting covers not just the how and why of urban sprawl, although there is plenty of that. The author also probes, in his interviews with developers, local government representatives and those opposed to development, the topics of race and opportunity, environmental protection, the meaning of community, the divide between government and private property, and different world views. And he presents these topics while showing how the circumstances of, and opinions about, these topics have changed in America from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s.

[Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. It took me a while, but Joel Garreau's epic book on the state of suburban sprawl in the 1980s is just as thrilling as when it was published in 1992. Chock-full of perplexing, contradictory motives, Edge City is a whirlwind tour of the United States, using each suburban city locale as a lens with which to analyze a social issue. It all reaches a climactic conclusion over the conflict over the development at Manassas National Battlefield in Virgina, just outside the quintessential Edge City, Tysons Corner. This book is incredible, and the opening chapter, I think, should be required reading.

[Judd Street · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I liked this book more than I did, but "Edge City" feels like it both over-states and under-theorizes its core subject.

At its heart, the insight of "Edge City" is that, more than ever before (at least in 1991, when the book came out), cities are developing not in their downtown core, but in intensive centres of activity around the periphery. Garreau sets five criteria for these 'edge cities':

- 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
- Is perceived by the population as one place
- Was nothing like a "city" as recently as 30 years ago. Then it was just bedrooms, if not cow pastures.

These criteria are a little arbitrary (something magic happens at 5,000,000 square feet, rather than 500,000 square meters?) and temporally sensitive (are we to read the 30 year criteria as continually rolling, or simply not existing in 1961?). But, in some ways the definition doesn't matter in Garreau's world, as it's also intuitive to 'get': edge cities are intensive places that spring up outside of established downtown cores.

The book, however, suffers from being both more and less than promised at the same time. On one hand, 'edge city' really seems to overplay what's going on: suburbs and sprawl. Dress it up if you will, but there's not really anything special going on here other than "when downtowns get expensive or otherwise constraining, we build out, and sometimes that happens in clusters." The counterfactual theory - that we'd infinitely and only build around 1950s downtowns in a consistent gradient - is not terribly plausible, and so Garreau's theory isn't terrible useful.

To riff on the Chinese approach to economics (e.g., "a market economy with Chinese characteristics"), "edge cities" (at least insofar as Garreau only bothers to examine US ones) are just "sprawl with American characteristics". The sprawl is driven by developers seeking to profit; it crops up around highways; and it promises different cheap versions of the American dream ("your dream commute by car!" "your dream big house, big yard, and big picket fence!" "your proximity to malls and evangelical megachurches!").

The best chapters by far are Atlanta and Phoenix, where Garreau begins to explore the logical conclusions of these developer-centric visions of the future. Because edge cities (read: sprawl, with American characteristics) can basically only be brought into existence by developers leveraging particular kinds of capital, as opposed to downtowns or more organic sprawl that are highly patchwork, edge cities are a policing, panopticon, privatization, and privilege wet dream. Developers can create para-public spaces that appear to offer the amenities of the commons or parks, but with the ability to trespass the wrong kind of people. They create places where police can be paid to do extra patrols, where private security can enforce particular visions of the good life (with the right people), and where HOAs and HOA-like entities can exert endless control over the minutia of who gets to count, be seen, and live their life. And, they create parasocial forms of relationships mediated by malls and movies and megacurches and nicely manicured experiences and streetscapes.

This is where Garreau under-delivers in a really significant way. While Garreau's central insight is the existence of edge cities, the book is written with a weirdly moralizing tone wherein both edge cities and one of their core causes - American car culture - are allegedly rehabilitated. Garreau's framing is that these two things (edge cities and car culture) are overly maligned, and one would do well to embrace their beauty (cars for being the 'optimal' way to deal with transportation in society, and edge cities as the pinnacle of development when the god-given ideal of cars is revealed).

Because of this, Garreau only ever ends up a few suburbanly sprawled properties away from critical insights. We can smell the "maybe this policing is bad" BBQ from a few homes away, but we don't get invited to the party of grappling with it. We hear the neighbours a few doors down maybe saying something about how car-centric and edge-city-worshiping arrangements might interfere with social arrangements, but they shut their window before really getting into the conversation. Garreau's journalistic insights have turned him onto a great question, but they either land short of a good critical analysis, or succumb to some sort of personal attempt to launder the image of God's land of the car, sprawl, and beautiful developer-led futures. (We do get a sense at a few times that Garreau has gotten to know many developers well and is perhaps explicitly interested in rehabilitating their image.)

And, of course, the book is pretty deeply hindered from gesturing at this being a matter of global importance, but then only looking at American examples.

Look, it's a good idea. There's a lot of good stuff here if you read with a critical eye. But, it's a book that cannot be taken at face value, which earns it the two-star review in my rating system. There are riches here to be mined, but they need refining. (I guess the beauty of an edge city, though, is that none of that pesky zoning need to apply; the divine developers can just put an idea refining plant next to their new apartments and the Mall of Sprawl.)

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way ahead, like that first subdivision out on the prairie. This book was indispensable to those of us who wanted to tell the true stories of suburbs, exurbs, ruburbs, etc. (Disclosure: The author is a friend and former Washington Post colleague; but when I first read this, I didn't know him.)

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edge City is circa-1990 study of a new pattern of urbanism, one which has become so common-place as to be utterly unremarkable. Garreau's Edge City has 5 million square feet of office space, commensurate retail, a population that increases during the working day, and didn't substantially exist 30 years. For better or worse, Edge Cities are the only places in the Western world that have seen substantial economic and population growth, from Irving CA to Alexandria VA, 287 & 95 New Jersey to the Houston Galleria.

Edge Cities are driven by economic and social factors. Increasingly computerized white collar jobs can be supported more cheaply outside of traditional downtown centers. Ordinary people won't commute more than 45 minutes, and won't walk more than 300 feet. Executives want to be no more than 8 miles from their office, an airport supporting executive jets, and their polo stables. Women workers prioritize the feeling of safety, and hate public transit.

Edge Cities are developer driven masterplanned dreams, or alternatively Ballardian nightmares of empty souls. An Edge City mixes the economic imperative to minimize costs with the need to convey an appearance of professional luxury that manifests in a "premium mediocre" glossy corporate aesthetic. Edge cities are immensely car dependent, and incapable of growing dense enough to support either public transit or walking. There are no public places, with malls and campus greenspaces offering a loose facsimile of public life.

Garreau writes enthusiastically about the trends that he sees, while also capturing the chillingly dystopian aspects. The section on "Shadow Governments", the array of coordinating committees that fill in the gaps where public bodies fail, centered around Phoenix, is perhaps most evocative. The Salt River Project, a water utility, has immense powers in the region. Homeowners Associations can levy punitive fines on people who commit violations like "parking your RV in the driveway". The Sun Valley Posse, a group of retirees with Glocks cosplaying as police officers, hits very differently in 2025.

Edge Cities lack the direct Jim Crow dynamics of older suburbs, with the chapter on Atlanta discussing the rise of a Black middle class. Conversely, they are incredibly class conscious, with microscopic distinctions between executives, senior managers, white collar grunts, and blue collar service and infrastructure workers. There's no room for the uneconomic in Edge Cities; artists, madmen, or unpaid caregivers.

Garreau's gleeful boosterism can be wearying, but as someone who reads a lot of vintage futurism, Garreau got a lot right and little wrong. I just wish that there were some alternative to this mode of life.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided me with a much deeper understanding of what I saw so frequently growing up in the Dallas area. It gives a historical context of how these 'edge cities' formed as an extension of greater mobility and choices of where to live. It's easy to think of these new elements of the urban landscape as something entirely separate from downtowns. Comparisons in the book between downtowns and edge cities in a number of categories was interesting because it put both on an equal footing and let the numbers speak for themselves. In that context, it was easier for me to see how similar edge cities and downtowns really are.

There was also a great deal of discussion on the aesthetic, socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental effects of edge cities. This book is now about 25 years old, so by now many of the topics discussed are a bit tired, but are still presented in an engaging manner. There are a few places where technology is mentioned to a humorous effect, such as mentioning the importance of the availability of touch-tone phone service for businesses versus rotary dial.

There were a few profiles of suburban residents that dragged on a bit longer than I would have liked, and some rather long-winded sections on the story of a real estate developer, but overall there wasn't a tremendous amount of unnecessary information or endless statistic dropping.

This was an enjoyable and insightful book overall in spite of its age. Like many good books, it seems more relevant now than when it was first written. In spite of so much talk of a resurgence of classic urbanism, the edge city trend shows no sign of slowing down. Knowing the history of edge cities is vital to understanding the new trends in edge cities and, hopefully, making them better places to live and work.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely an important book, and a legitimate classic, even if it is rather outdated and even if Garreau is...over-enthusiastic about "edge cities." I particularly appreciated some of the discussions of the economics of suburban office park construction, such as the observation that a FAR of approximately 0.4 is an upper-bound in areas without good transit unless one is willing to pay significantly more to build non-surface parking.

Unfortunately, while I'd been really looking forward to the extended section on Northern Virginian edge cities and, in particular, on Tyson's Corner, that section was one of the weakest in my opinion. It focused much more on human interest about the old Confederate-sympathizing developers responsible for some of the early development in Fairfax County than on the actual development, and I'm not at all convinced that the discussion of the fight to preserve the Bull Run Battlefield--while important local history--was really relevant to the discussion of edge cities as a development pattern.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars.

This was a really interesting read on a subject I knew literally nothing about. I especially enjoyed the Phoenix, Southern California, and San Francisco chapters. At times, the author meandered into more abstract philosophy that I didn't always understand, or weird tangents about his interview subjects, but otherwise it was informative and relatively accessible. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I was studying in the field or had more background, but it was still a fine summer reading selection.

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a very interesting read in its time, but it is so old that it is only useful insofar as being a window into the US of a few decades ago.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, for a sociology text, it's pretty cleary written. One can follow it! More importantly, however, is the data that Garreau compiles, and the trends he maps out. Strangely upbeat for the most part, he has a lot of enthusiasm for American ingenuity. While his explanations of why Edge Cities have grown and function the way they do make sense, Garreau still seems a little too nonplussed about it. Also, big swing and miss over his oil price predictions. Nonetheless, if you've ever wondered why places like Irvine are there, and are so gross, this is a pretty good read.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really great analysis of the phenomenon of edge cities, which popped up across metropolitan areas in the late 20th Century, nuclei of suburban activity that include lots of office space (jobs) as well as shopping centers and cultural hubs. Focuses on 10 different metro areas and their edge cities. Wish he included the Chicago area though. And since it's written from a journalisitc perspective rather than an urban planning perspective, it makes for a good read but leaves more to be desired.

[Josh Fogelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit outdated in 2019 but still interesting to read Mr.Garreau's thoughts on the emergence of the new American city. It would be interesting to hear what he thinks about downtown renaissance and the rise in America's interest with the original urban core and inner neighborhoods.

Edge cities notable pages

112-113
118
120-23
154-55
223
365-66
368-69

[Nathan Bussiere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at the phenomenon of edge cities, as experienced in the late 80's/early 90's. The author takes an honest an nuanced approach, giving in to neither kneejerk reaction or mindless boosterism. A very worthwhile piece of book-length journalism.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although somewhat out of date (and with the return of the wealthy to the inner cities a bit OBE), this book is still a fascinating look at how our cities in the 1980s and 1990s spawned ring cities in the inner suburbs.

[Eric Hines]

cities,cultural theory

[Linda Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as an undergraduate and reread sections years later. Fascinating look at redefining boundaries and movements in these United States.

[Mike Moskos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably would have received a 4 if I had read it before it became dated.

[Jamees · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might be a little dated now, but a great book on city planning and the suburbs.

[Kevin Olsavsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent review of the development of urban/suburban areas in North America throughout the 20th century

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda out of date

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived in and around cities of great size, as well as in the rural South and in small towns, I found this fascinating. The ring effect, in particular, was explained very well.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now massively outdated of course, but well worth reading as background to see how we got where we are today. I would adore an updated edition...

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got me interested in Urban Planning