The Future of Edge City

Joel Garreau

Over the past 20 years, Americans living and working on the Eastside have helped create the biggest revolution in seven generations in the shaping of cities that are the capstones, cornerstones, and sometimes millstones of our civilization.

Enormous job centers bloomed in Bellevue and the Overlake area in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

It was an astounding transformation. In places that only yesterday seemed like sleepy backwaters residential suburbia or even cow pastures you now see enormous office cores that rival far more ancient metropolises back East by every urban measure white-collar jobs, cloth napkins restaurants, luxury hotels. In terms of jobs and the creation of wealth, Bellevue is now bigger than downtown Pittsburgh. Overlake is greater than downtown Providence.

The Eastside is never going to be the same.

Nor will America. For Bellevue and Overlake are what I have come to call Edge Cities. Every single urban area worldwide that is growing is growing in the 21st-century, Information Age fashion of the Eastside, sprouting multiple urban cores. This is true from Paris to Jakarta, from Toronto to Sao Paolo.i think tildes a re involved somewhere in there.

There are now 181 of these strange new Edge Cities in the United States. Each is bigger than Memphis. There are only 45 downtowns of comparable size. Of course, these Edge Cities rarely look much like a 19th-century dow ntown. Their center is frequently a mall. They usually have more jogging trails than sidewalks. Their monuments are not the horse-mounted hero, but the atrium-shielded trees perpetually in leaf in our corporate centers, shopping centers and fitness center s. Edge Cities are linked not by subways and railways, but by freeways, jetways, and roof-mounted satellite dishes 10 meters across. They rarely match political boundaries that were drawn generations ago which, examined functionally, hardly match the limi ts of Redmond, for example. Their characteristic form is not the village square, but the corporate campus in which the deer are a nuisance, Canada geese on the pond … clich‚, and the marketable product that goes out to the world is cleverness and innovati on. It can be imbedded in everything from games that glow in phosphor dots to a new kind of composite-laden aircraft wing. Some of these Edge Cities, like the South Coast Metroplex near John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, or the one surroundi ng the O'Hare International Airport Area of Chicago, have more white-collar jobs than downtown Seattle.

These Edge Cities are not "sub-urbs." They are not sub-anything. The land out past the old downtowns is where the majority of Americans now live, wo rk, shop, pray, socialize, play, and grow old. The area around Nintendo and Microsoft has all the functions that a city has ever had, for the 8,000 years we have been building cities. It is, functionally, a new kind of city, comparable to an old downtown in every way except form. The same can be said of Bellevue which is now so genuinely urban that retirees come down to the cappuccino bar by the QFC across from Bellevue Square to read their morning newspaper and people-watch, while accountants and other E dge City professionals congregate in a strip mall down the street at I Love Sushi.

Even if you live in Snohomish or North Bend, the future of the Eastside's Edge Cities is of vital importance to you. For not only are these new urban cores the economic drivers of the Eastside, on which so many jobs and tax dollars depend, but their proximity determines the property values of our homes and they have become the everyday centers of our lives. The old downtowns are cherished places that will doubtless thriv e, but increasingly they are places we visit as if we were tourists.

Because these Edge Cities are so new 30 years ago they were nothing remotely close to urban they are nowhere near their final form; they are still being created.

That also means th eir future is not assured. There will be winners and losers amid this new urban tumult. Some Edge Cities will probably die, for the 1990s are a lot like the 1890s.

A century ago, we had a brand new technology cheap steel that allowed us to venture out with rails and barbed wire and John Deere plows and build cities where we never could before: across the Great Plains. We overbuilt, of course; we always do when we are trying something brand new and the rules are not clear. So some of those Plains cities turned to dust. And some turned into Denver.

Just so, in the 1990s, we have a new technology cheap silicon that has allowed corporations to move their headquarters and research centers and backshops to wherever they see comparative advantage, includin g Bellevue and Redmond. Along with other driving technologies like the automobile and the jet plane, computers in the 1980s allowed the greatest frenzy of city building in the history of the Republic way past the old downtowns, including Overlake. Wouldn' t you know it. Again we overbuilt. The vacancy rates in the office buildings that are the hallmark of these Edge Cities haunt us to this day

The hardship is not spread evenly. Some Edge Cities, like those in the Silicon Valley, seem to be winners. But others, like those in Westchester County, New York, where IBM is headquartered, are hurting.

How will the Eastside's Edge Cities fare in the future? Although their futures are by no means assured, they are quite competitive in some surprising ways.

Overlake is one of the most affordable and child-friendly urban cores in America, according to the Edge City Database a joint venture among the Edge City Group, Dun & Bradstreet, and Strategic Mapping Inc., the Silicon Valley demographics and mapping fir m.

When you look at all the 226 major job centers in the US downtowns and Edge Cities drawing functional boundaries tightly around the places where the high-quality white-collar jobs are, Overlake ranks in the top 20 percent in median household income half the households there make more than $50,000 a year. At the same time, Overlake ranks in the top 5 percent of urban cores in the percentage of homes in the $100,000-$300,000 range that are within handy distance of these office buildings. There are few other places in the world that offer that kind of middle-class housing within bicycling range of enviable jobs.

At the same time, any place that is seen as a good place for kids, the most vulnerable among us, can be a good place for all. Overlake is s econd only to an Edge City in the Washington, DC, area in terms of urban cores loaded with Ozzie-and-Harriet households sporting two parents and kids. Almost half fit that profile.

Not surprisingly, given the technology emphasis of the area, people who live right in the midst of Overlake rank in the top 15 percent of the nation in people who work at home. And Overlake is very safe, for an urban core. In fact, it is the 29th safest in the country.

What's missing, of course, is the kind of yeasty dive rsity that is usually associated with urban places that are loved and have poems written about them. Overlake is one of the whitest urban cores in the nation. There are few blacks and Hispanics and only a middling number of Asians compared to other urban cores.

It's astounding how few singles live alone Overlake is in the bottom 5 percent of the nation in this. "Microserfs" really do seem to fit the image novelist Doug Coupland drew of them, according to the Edge City Database. Such singles live close to the office and are clustered in group houses. There are few female-headed households.

The area offers huge entrepreneurial opportunities for anybody who wants to create eating and drinking places given all the jobs there, the number of pubs and ethn ic restaurants per employee is paltry, and amusement and recreation opportunities pathetic, compared to other downtowns and Edge Cities. Get a life, indeed! This lack is especially remarkable given the breathtaking population growth Overlake has seen. It was among the top 10 urban cores in the nation in population increase in the middle of the recessionary years from 1990 to 1993.

Bellevue, meanwhile, is a strikingly well-balanced place. It's in the top 15 percent of urban cores in the nation as a mecc a for entrepreneurial small businesses, with over 5,000 companies with sales below $20 million represented there. At the same time, it sports 25 companies that gross over $100 million, and 622 corporate headquarters. Bellevue is in the top 10 percent of t he nation in communications firms, and also ranks high in terms of the number of professional service firms. It's in the top 20 percent of the nation's cities in both wholesale and retail trade. But it hasn't lost its roots. It ranks remarkably high in ag ricultural and forestry companies.

The people who live close to these Bellevue jobs are not as affluent as those in Overlake, and they are not as awash in middle-class housing, but in both categories, the Bellevue core is still significantly above the US average. Bellevue, like Overlake, ranks high in the number of people who work from home. Like most of the Seattle area, the center of Bellevue is a pretty white place 87.8 percent but it is more diverse than Overlake. It is in the top 20 percent of US urban cores in Asians, for example.

All this suggests that the future of the Eastside is rooted in its quality of life. When corporate executives look around the world to locate a business, the first things they look at are hard-headed economic factors like proximity to an airport, proximity to executive and worker housing, whether the commutes are bearable and the workforce talented. In these, the Eastside is blessed, which is why it is seeing such growth.

But there are dozens of other Edge Cities around the country that are fully competitive with Bellevue and Overlake. When decision makers see these locations being roughly equal in market terms, the tie-breaking questions are ones like: Is this place ever going to be a good place for me to grow ol d? Is it going to be a good place for my kid to be young? Can I imagine watching a Fourth of July parade here? Is this a good place to fall in love?

These are the questions that will shape the Eastside's future. Because remember, the Edge Cities there are brand new. In the past, it took hundreds of years for places like Venice to become the beloved places they are today. In these new cities, we must build civilization, identity, and community much faster than in the past, because if we do not, people a nd businesses can easily leave for some place more appealing. There is vastly more competition among locations today than at any time in history. The American middle class is the most highly educated and highly traveled civilization the world has ever kno wn. These people know the difference between a good place and a bad one, one that offers not just jobs, but sustenance for the soul.

The question is whether the Eastside can make its Edge Cities into beloved places about which people will have fond mem ories generations from now cities that blend easily with the natural blessings of the Pacific Northwest.

And that question is urgent. Because we're not just talking about all your jobs. Although we are. And it's not that we're just talking about all your taxes. Although we are. And it's not just that we're talking about all your property values. Although we're talking about those too.

The most important reason to make sure that as Bellevue and Overlake change and grow, they are distinguished by charm and grace, is that for you, and for your kids, and for your kids' kids for generations to come, this is the place they are going to call Home.ù

Joel Garreau