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An edge city is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown (or central business district) in what had previously been a residential or rural area. The term was popularized in the 1991 book ''Edge City: Life on the New Frontier'' by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while working as a reporter for the ''Washington Post''. Garreau argues that the edge city has become the standard form of urban growth worldwide, representing a 20th-century urban form unlike that of the 19th-century central downtown. Other terms for the areas include ''suburban activity centers'', ''megacenters'', and ''suburban business districts''. ==Definitions== In 1991, Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city: * Has five million or more square feet (465,000 m²) of leasable office space. * Has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) or more of leasable retail space. * Has more jobs than bedrooms. * Is perceived by the population as one place. * Was nothing like a "city" as recently as 30 years ago. Then it was just bedrooms, if not cow pastures." Most edge cities develop at or near existing or planned freeway intersections, and are especially likely to develop near major airports. They rarely include heavy industry. They often are not separate legal entities but are governed as part of surrounding counties (this is more often the case in the East than in the Midwest, South, or West). They are numerous—almost 200 in the United States, compared to 45 downtowns of comparable size—and are large geographically because they are built at automobile scale. Spatially, edge cities primarily consist of mid-rise office towers (with some skyscrapers) surrounded by massive surface parking lots and meticulously manicured lawns, almost reminiscent of the designs of Le Corbusier. Instead of a traditional street grid, their street networks are hierarchical, consisting of winding parkways (often lacking sidewalks) that feed into arterial roads or freeway ramps. However, edge cities feature job density similar to that of secondary downtowns found in places such as Newark and Pasadena; indeed, Garreau writes that edge cities' development proves that "density is back". There are certain factors that helped the emergence of edge cities; they are the advanced development of the automobile, which in turn led to the need for parking, the rise of communications and the entry of more individuals into the work place (i.e. women). The creation of the edge city also includes political groups that aided in the creation of the edge city in a particular way. Within the edge city exists a privatized proto-government that is an alternative to normal politics. These “shadow governments can tax, legislate for, and police their communities, but they are rarely accountable, are responsive primarily to wealth (as opposed to numbers of voters), and subject to few constitutional constraints”. Shadow governments form as private organizations come to edge cities. In most cases a ‘privatopia’ is formed within edge city residential areas. Private housing development is administered by homeowner associations. In 1964 there were less than 500 associations, “…by 1992, there were 150,000 associations privately governing approximately 32 million Americans”. Edge cities have had substantial investments placed in them, edge cities are being reconstructed as much as cities have been over a century. This concept has showcased the impact that national economies have on the edge city and the surrounding areas. Through Garreau the term edge city has provided information on how corporate players remain important to the strength of urban and regional subsets. Garreau describes that the edge city has a tendency to have a large service-orientated industry linked to the national economy. The edge city offers supplies to the local area in the form of retail facilities and consumer services. Progressively different services begin to move towards the edge city as the population of corporate businesses increase. The corporate offices fill in space in edge cities and provide connections to exterior locations if decisions are being made from those locales. Not only do corporate, service, transportation based edge cities exist but the innovation-driven edge cities will generate extra-metropolitan linkages. These innovative edge cities expand various corporate activities as hosts. Edge cities may create a significant growth in sophisticated retail, entertainment, and consumer service facilities, which in turn leads to a rise in local employment opportunities. The edge city has a tendency to affect the surrounding areas by procuring more opportunities within the labor market. They are well suited to an economy which is known for a service-orientated market as well as sustaining major manufacturing sectors. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「edge city」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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