Edge City: Life on the New Frontier - Essay Example

The common features describing an edge city are- 1. It has five million square feet or more of leasable office space 2. It has 600,000 square feet or more of leasable retail space (the size of a large regional shopping mall) 3. The population must rise every morning and drop every afternoon (it has more jobs than bedrooms) 4. It is perceived by the population as one place (the place “has it all;” employment, shopping, recreation, etc.) 5. It was nothing like a “city” as recently as thirty years ago (it developed in a vacuum)

There are presently approximately 200 edge cities existing and developing on American highways. According to Garreau Tysons Corner, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. is a typical edge city. Edge cities are Information Age 21st-century hubs where the bulk of Americans now live, toil, play, pray, mingle, grow up, and grow old. (The Garreau Group, no date)