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Edgeless Cities:

The Philadelphia metropolitan region is growing in a very elusive, sprawling way. Philadelphiais second only to Miami in the percentage of office space found in low density, dispersedoffice 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.

EXPLORING THE ELUSIVE METROPOLIS

Robert E. Lang, Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech

“ . . . the bulletin is this: Edge Cities meanthat density is back” Joel Garreau,

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

The much-quoted line from Joel Garreau’sinfluential book,

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

, is often cited with a sigh of relief by those who hope suburbia is finally growing upand starting to behave itself. Many people inthe smart growth movement, which seeksamong other goals to build higher density,mixed-use suburbs, are especially invested inthe idea that maturing Edge Cities representa potentially hopeful future. Edge Cities likeTyson’s Corner in Virginia feature a high-density mix of office space, retail, and hous-

METROPOLITANPRIMARY DOWNTOWNSECONDARY DOWNTOWNEDGE CITYEDGELESS CITYAreaOffice Space % of Office Space% of Office Space % ofOffice Space% of(Square Feet)Metro Area (Square Feet)Metro Area (Square Feet)Metro Area (Square Feet)Metro Area

Total1,013,603,948 37.7161,942,6896.0 532,944,733 19.8 980,993,48836.5

Atlanta

31,132,327 23.6 13,049,9809.9 33,501,99925.3 54,486,457 41.2

Boston

56,666,72737.4 6,995,4064.6 28,426,987 18.8 59,345,046 39.2

Chicago

134,285,72653.9 48,546,947 19.5 66,250,174 26.6

Dallas

30,607,81820.5 6,779,6284.5 60,084,103 40.3 51,554,46334.6

Denver

23,522,23230.4 3,263,7484.2 22,753,33829.4 27,722,09535.9

Detroit

16,754,46121.3 31,085,32739.5 30,813,71139.2

Houston

38,046,46723.0 62,557,74837.9 64,470,74239.1

Los Angeles

85,037,10429.8 22,109,8017.8 72,324,97025.4 105,412,45237.0

Miami

12,678,88413.1 4,374,3294.5 16,077,60916.6 63,774,41665.8

New York

390,143,00056.7 49,711,6007.243,006,7776.2 205,503,63529.9

Philadelphia

54,818,18034.2 5,196,6983.2 14,199,8498.9 85,899,85353.6

San Francisco

60,114,66133.9 15,606,9688.8 24,612,36613.9 76,968,74443.4

Washington

79,796,36128.6 34,854,531 12.5 75,766,71327.1 88,791,70031.8

Average81,872,63516,543,63441,620,22877,208,919Median55,742,4546,995,40637,046,05265,360,458

ing. Unfortunately, more recent research suggestsEdge Cities are not as widespread a phenomenon asoriginally thought. Instead, emergence of “EdgelessCities” means that we are moving away from seeingthe high density suburbia that Garreau promises.“Edgeless Cities” are a form of sprawling office devel-opment and are not mixed use, pedestrian friendly oreasily accessed by public transit. Geographically they are nearly twice as large as edge cities. Edgeless Citiesare everywhere. No major metropolitan area is with-out them.The term “Edgeless City” captures the fact that mostsuburban office areas lack a physical edge. In contrastto Edge Cities, which in theory combine large-scaleoffice development with major retail, Edgeless Citiescontain mostly isolated office buildings at varyingdensities over vast swaths of urban space.Edge Cities do represent a suburban future, butonly one future. This study reports on the other new metropolis to emerge in the past two decades. Itcovers the alternative suburban future, the post-poly-centric version — that of the Edgeless City.This piece looks at the 13 largest markets in thecountry, which together contain more than 2.6billion square feet of office space and 26,000buildings. The study is not intended as an exhaus-tive statistical analysis — although the findingsare often data derived. Rather, the data helpreframe current thinking on the metropolis. Thestudy’s main contribution is conceptual. Just asMyron Orfield’s book

American Metropolitics

distinguished multiple kinds of suburbs, thisbook delineates between two types of suburbanoffice development — bounded and edgeless.[Editor’s note: See an excerpt from Orfield’s

American Metropolitics

on page 10.] And likeOrfield’s work, this study has numerous implica-tions beyond the data. One is that Edgeless Citiesraise an even bigger challenge than Edge Cities forthose who seek to build a less sprawling suburbia.Following office space trends provides a goodmethod for understanding metropolitan changebecause offices are where a large percentage of jobgrowth occurs. In some metropolitan areas, nearly half of all newly hired employees go to work inoffice buildings.

GREATER PHILADELPHIA REGIONAL REVIEW SUMMER 2002

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

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

Office Location Types

Large metropolitan areas have long been polycen-tric. But today’s polycentrism is quite different. Whereas factory towns, secondary cities, andeven Edge Cities share a spatial logic with big cities(albeit on a smaller scale), Edgeless Cities representa departure. Edge Cities are perhaps the last stopon the road away from traditional urban forms.The major statistical source for this project isoffice data, or specifically rental office space. Thestandard categories for reporting office data areCentral 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 concentrationof a region’s office space. Non-CBD office spaceexists throughout metropolitan areas. Much of this space lies in suburbs — even distant suburbs— although much may be found within thecentral city outside the CBD.Non-CBD office space varies tremendously inits size, scale, density, location, age and land usecharacteristics. The category non-CBD capturesevery office location from the single low-slungoffice building at the farthest reaches of themetropolitan area, to “uptowns” that arose assecondary business districts within the centralcity. Non-CBD office space is thus a grab-bagcategory that captures all office space outsidea CBD.Many observers of suburban office space — Joel Garreau being the most notable example —have assumed that all non-CBD space is locatedin large edge cities such as Tysons Corner, VA and Post Oaks in Houston. This study seeks todetermine exactly how much non-CBD officespace is found in Edge Cities and how much,by contrast, is found in a different category alltogether. I argue that most non-CBD officespace is actually located in Edgeless Cities,not Edge Cities.

“EdgelessCities” area form ofsprawlingofficedevelopmentand are notmixed use,pedestrianfriendly oreasily accessedby publictransit.