Book Review - The Edgeless Cities

Edgeless Cities: EXPLORING THE ELUSIVE METROPOLIS Robert E. Lang, Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech The Philadelphia metropolitan region is growing in a very elusive, sprawling way. Philadelphia is second only to Miami in the percentage of office space found in low density, dispersed office parks on the urban fringe. The Philadelphia region is an example of an “Edgeless City.” This article is taken from Lang’s forthcoming Brookings Press book due out in 2003.

“ . . . the bulletin is this: Edge Cities mean that density is back” Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier The much-quoted line from Joel Garreau’s influential book, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, is often cited with a sigh of relief by those who hope suburbia is finally growing up and starting to behave itself. Many people in the smart growth movement, which seeks among other goals to build higher density, mixed-use suburbs, are especially invested in the idea that maturing Edge Cities represent a potentially hopeful future. Edge Cities like Tyson’s Corner in Virginia feature a highdensity mix of office space, retail, and hous-

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Table 1: National Metropolitan Summary — Downtowns, Edge Cities, Edgeless Cities 1999 METROPOLITAN

PRIMARY DOWNTOWN

Area

Office Space (Square Feet)

% of Metro Area

Total

1,013,603,948

37.7

Atlanta

31,132,327

Boston Chicago

SECONDARY DOWNTOWN

EDGE CITY

EDGELESS CITY

% of Metro Area

Office Space (Square Feet)

% of Metro Area

Office Space (Square Feet)

% of Metro Area

161,942,689

6.0

532,944,733

19.8

980,993,488

36.5

23.6

13,049,980

9.9

33,501,999

25.3

54,486,457

41.2

56,666,727

37.4

6,995,406

4.6

28,426,987

18.8

59,345,046

39.2

134,285,726

53.9

48,546,947

19.5

66,250,174

26.6

Dallas

30,607,818

20.5

6,779,628

4.5

60,084,103

40.3

51,554,463

34.6

Denver

23,522,232

30.4

3,263,748

4.2

22,753,338

29.4

27,722,095

35.9

Detroit

16,754,461

21.3

31,085,327

39.5

30,813,711

39.2

Houston

38,046,467

23.0

62,557,748

37.9

64,470,742

39.1

Los Angeles

85,037,104

29.8

22,109,801

7.8

72,324,970

25.4

105,412,452

37.0

Miami

12,678,884

13.1

4,374,329

4.5

16,077,609

16.6

63,774,416

65.8

390,143,000

56.7

49,711,600

7.2

43,006,777

6.2

205,503,635

29.9

Philadelphia

54,818,180

34.2

5,196,698

3.2

14,199,849

8.9

85,899,853

53.6

San Francisco

60,114,661

33.9

15,606,968

8.8

24,612,366

13.9

76,968,744

43.4

Washington

79,796,361

28.6

34,854,531

12.5

75,766,713

27.1

88,791,700

31.8

Average

81,872,635

16,543,634

41,620,228

77,208,919

Median

55,742,454

6,995,406

37,046,052

65,360,458

New York

Office Space (Square Feet)

Source: Black’s Guide (New York’s primary downtown figure comes from Cushman & Wakefield and the Real Estate Board of New York)

ing. Unfortunately, more recent research suggests Edge Cities are not as widespread a phenomenon as originally thought. Instead, emergence of “Edgeless Cities” means that we are moving away from seeing the high density suburbia that Garreau promises. “Edgeless Cities” are a form of sprawling office development and are not mixed use, pedestrian friendly or easily accessed by public transit. Geographically they are nearly twice as large as edge cities. Edgeless Cities are everywhere. No major metropolitan area is without them. The term “Edgeless City” captures the fact that most suburban office areas lack a physical edge. In contrast to Edge Cities, which in theory combine large-scale office development with major retail, Edgeless Cities contain mostly isolated office buildings at varying densities over vast swaths of urban space. Edge Cities do represent a suburban future, but only one future. This study reports on the other new metropolis to emerge in the past two decades. It covers the alternative suburban future, the post-polycentric version — that of the Edgeless City.

This piece looks at the 13 largest markets in the country, which together contain more than 2.6 billion square feet of office space and 26,000 buildings. The study is not intended as an exhaustive statistical analysis — although the findings are often data derived. Rather, the data help reframe current thinking on the metropolis. The study’s main contribution is conceptual. Just as Myron Orfield’s book American Metropolitics distinguished multiple kinds of suburbs, this book delineates between two types of suburban office development — bounded and edgeless. [Editor’s note: See an excerpt from Orfield’s American Metropolitics on page 10.] And like Orfield’s work, this study has numerous implications beyond the data. One is that Edgeless Cities raise an even bigger challenge than Edge Cities for those who seek to build a less sprawling suburbia. Following office space trends provides a good method for understanding metropolitan change because offices are where a large percentage of job growth occurs. In some metropolitan areas, nearly half of all newly hired employees go to work in office buildings.

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“Edgeless Cities” are a form of sprawling office development and are not mixed use,

Office Location Types

pedestrian

Large metropolitan areas have long been polycentric. But today’s polycentrism is quite different. Whereas factory towns, secondary cities, and even Edge Cities share a spatial logic with big cities (albeit on a smaller scale), Edgeless Cities represent a departure. Edge Cities are perhaps the last stop on the road away from traditional urban forms.

friendly or easily accessed by public transit.

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The major statistical source for this project is office data, or specifically rental office space. The standard categories for reporting office data are Central Business District (CBD) and non-CBD. CBD space refers to downtown office buildings. Downtowns vary in size and scale, but they typically contain the largest single concentration of a region’s office space. Non-CBD office space exists throughout metropolitan areas. Much of this space lies in suburbs — even distant suburbs — although much may be found within the central city outside the CBD.

Non-CBD office space varies tremendously in its size, scale, density, location, age and land use characteristics. The category non-CBD captures every office location from the single low-slung office building at the farthest reaches of the metropolitan area, to “uptowns” that arose as secondary business districts within the central city. Non-CBD office space is thus a grab-bag category that captures all office space outside a CBD. Many observers of suburban office space — Joel Garreau being the most notable example — have assumed that all non-CBD space is located in large edge cities such as Tysons Corner, VA and Post Oaks in Houston. This study seeks to determine exactly how much non-CBD office space is found in Edge Cities and how much, by contrast, is found in a different category all together. I argue that most non-CBD office space is actually located in Edgeless Cities, not Edge Cities.

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The Era of Edgelessness Edge Cities may one day be seen as a transitional urban form; an attempt to build auto-based, low-density downtowns before developers realized that cars made such places mostly unnecessary. The new metropolitan form shows up less often in the Post Oaks and Tysons Corners than in the nameless office parks at nearly every exit ramp off the beltway where most of the office space built outside of downtowns is found. Perhaps most importantly, Edgeless Cities are not Edge Cities waiting to happen. Instead they represent a competing and more decentralized form of office development. Ironically, Edge Cities face the same land cost and congestion pressures as old

downtowns, for they too are now central places. Edgeless Cities may be the ultimate result of a metropolitan process that has been tearing apart concentrated commercial development for the better part of a century. Nearly three-quarters of all existing suburban office space was constructed in the past two decades. Before the 1980s only about a quarter of all office space was suburban. Today 42% of the office space in the top dozen markets is found in suburbs. If we remove Manhattan from the central city totals, the gap between cities and suburbs closes to near parity. Suburbs, once minor players in the metropolitan office economy, now compete with central cities head to head.

Suburbs, once minor players in the metropolitan office economy, now compete with central cities head to head.

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Table 2: Philadelphia’s Office Space Locations CURRENT

PHILADELPHIA

Square Footage

% of Metro Area

1990-1999 Square % of Footage Metro Area

BY YEAR BUILT 1980-1989 Square % of Footage Metro Area

Pre-1979 Square % of Footage Metro Area

Downtown

60,014,878

37.5

7,317,702

21.4

35,913,222

41.4

16,783,954

42.7

Philadelphia

54,818,180

34.2

6,683,702

19.6

32,389,160

37.4

15,745,318

40.1

Wilmington

5,196,698

3.2

634,000

1.9

3,524,062

4.1

1,038,636

2.6

14,199,849

8.9

2,987,279

8.8

9,019,918

10.4

2,192,652

5.6

King of Prussia

6,173,563

3.9

1,209,429

3.5

3,776,267

4.4

1,187,867

3.0

Malvern-Paoli-Wayne

8,026,286

5.0

1,777,850

5.2

5,243,651

6.0

1,004,785

2.6

Edgeless Cities

85,899,853

53.6

23,827,588

69.8

41,773,524

48.2

20,298,741

51.7

TOTAL

160,114,580

100

34,132,569

100

86,706,664

100

39,275,347

100

Edge Cities

Philadelphia — The Edgeless Metropolis of the North “Edgelessness” is a term particularly apropos to metropolitan Philadelphia’s office structure. While Philadelphia still has an average amount of office space within its primary downtown, more than half (54%) of its metropolitan area office space is located in Edgeless Cities. Miami, the only other area with over half (almost two-thirds) its office space in edgeless locations, has the lowest amount of space in its primary downtown (13.1%), which gives it by far the highest disparity between downtown and edgeless office space. Among the 13 metropolitan areas in the study, Philadelphia and Miami are at the most advanced stage of office decentralization.

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interstates. Interestingly, the New Jersey side of Philadelphia contains no office cluster that qualifies as either a downtown or an Edge City. Places such as Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which features one of the oldest enclosed malls in the nation, lacks the size to be an Edge City. The old industrial satellite city of Camden, New Jersey has fallen on hard times and unlike Newark and Jersey City in the New York region, has not been redeveloped as a secondary downtown. Not only does Philadelphia have large Edgeless Cities; they are the fastest growing office development category. About 70% of the office space added to the current inventory during the 1990s was in Edgeless Cities. Meanwhile Edge Cities captured nine percent and downtowns another 21%.

Philadelphia is proof that the edgeless metropolis is not just a Sunbelt phenomenon. In fact, the region appears to be the South Florida of the north, with the major difference being that Philadelphia does have a decent-sized downtown. Both regions also have small, average-sized buildings, which may be related to Edgeless City-oriented growth.

In total, Philadelphia’s suburbs gained almost 26 million square feet of office space during the 1990s, while the city picked up only 9 million square feet. That helped give the suburbs the majority of office space in the region by 1999. Almost four-fifths (78%) of the current office space in Philadelphia’s suburbs was built since 1980.

Philadelphia’s two modest-sized Edge Cities are north and west of the downtown. Malvern-PaoliWayne is along Philadelphia’s “Main Line,” which refers to a commuter train that runs through the region’s older affluent suburbs. The King of Prussia Edge City is built around a regional mall, near the intersection of the region’s major

In total, Metropolitan Philadelphia’s Edgeless Cities spread over 297 square miles and account for 63% of the region’s office space. The downtown fits in just 4 square miles and contains the other 37% of office inventory. The downtown’s office buildings, averaging over 300,000 square feet, also dwarf those in Edgeless Cities, which range from 30,031 to 71,882 square feet.

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Implications The location of office space is critical in a number of public policy areas. For example, the distribution of new office space can help determine the extent to which there is a jobs/housing mismatch in a region. It can also influence the spatial mismatch between economic opportunity and the concentration of minority households. Office location also impacts urban sprawl. If most new office space is constructed at the regional edge, it extends commuter sheds for many miles into undeveloped rural areas and thereby fuels sprawl. Finally, the geography of office location figures prominently in transportation analysis. If most new space is built in areas with no public transit access, then reliance on automobiles will continue to grow.

Even though many practitioners, planners, academics and public officials have focused much of their attention on the problems of cities, the restructuring and reordering of this very elusive metropolitan form is the great project of the next century. In the 19th century, Americans created a vast, coast-tocoast network of cities. By 1900, the core of every major American region except for Las Vegas was established. During the 20th century, and especially in the postwar years, growth spread out from urban cores giving us the our vast metropolitan forum. The nation now turns to the next phase of development — bringing order to this growth. The article above is an edited summary of Edgeless Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropolis. The book is due out from Brookings Institution Press in early 2003. Robert Lang is the Director of the newly founded Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

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