Doubleday; 1991; 546 pages
ISBN: 0-385-42434-5
"ANTICIPATORY ARCHAEOLOGY" is how Washington Post journalist Garreau refers to his
Already, two thirds of all American office facilities are in Edge Cities, and 80 percent of them have materialized in only the last two decades. |
four-year exploration of the new generation of cities taking undefined shape on the periphery of the old, to the benefit of both.
It was a conversion experience for the author. His approach is as admirable as it is rare: instead of seeking factual support for a pre-existing theory (or aesthetic) of loathing urban sprawl, Garreau took his alarm as a goad to go look and try to understand what was happening. Understanding changed his mind, and it will probably change yours.
His title is perfect, referring to location, to the cutting edge of commercial activity, to the "edge effect" of ecology, wherein life is most varied and concentrated at environmental edges, and to the nervy behavior of people who know they are creating new patterns, out there in edge city.
Garreau's report covers American experience. The phenomenon is increasingly global.
—Stewart Brand
Quoted from the text
"Edge City is an adaptable creature," said Pamela Manfre later.... "It fixes itself. It redefines itself. It's almost as if we're working out equations. We 'solve for' problems. We 'solve for' commutes. And then we 'solve for' sterility. And then we 'solve for' choice."
There is probably no more important law of Edge City location than this: Whenever a company moves its headquarters, the commute of the chief executive officer always becomes shorter.
MASTER PLANNING: ...In practice, that attribute of a development in which so many rigid controls are put in place, to defeat every imaginable future problem, that any possibility of life, spontaneity, or flexible response to unanticipated events is eliminated.
Depending on whom you listen to, [Christopher] Alexander is the most innovative thinker in the last one hundred years on the way we design and build our lives; or he is a dangerous radical who threatens the fabric of the building, banking, real estate, and architecture industries; or he is a delusional flake.
