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 high-
density 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 SECONDARY DOWNTOWN EDGE CITY EDGELESS CITY
Area Office Space % of Office Space % of Office Space % of Office Space % of
(Square Feet) Metro Area (Square Feet) Metro Area (Square Feet) Metro Area (Square Feet) Metro Area

Total 1,013,603,948 37.7 161,942,689 6.0 532,944,733 19.8 980,993,488 36.5

Atlanta 31,132,327 23.6 13,049,980 9.9 33,501,999 25.3 54,486,457 41.2

Boston 56,666,727 37.4 6,995,406 4.6 28,426,987 18.8 59,345,046 39.2

Chicago 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

New York 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

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 devel-
opment 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 with-
out 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-poly-
centric 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 exhaus-
tive 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 implica-
tions 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 polycen-
tric. But today’s polycentrism is quite different.
friendly or Whereas factory towns, secondary cities, and
easily accessed even Edge Cities share a spatial logic with big cities
(albeit on a smaller scale), Edgeless Cities represent
by public a departure. Edge Cities are perhaps the last stop
on the road away from traditional urban forms.
transit.
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
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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.

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 repre-
sent a competing and more decentralized form of
office development. Ironically, Edge Cities face the
same land cost and congestion pressures as old
G R E AT E R P H I L A D E L P H I A R E G I O N A L R E V I E W S U M M E R 2 0 0 2
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 BY YEAR BUILT
1990-1999 1980-1989 Pre-1979
Square % of Square % of Square % of Square % of
PHILADELPHIA Footage Metro Area Footage Metro Area Footage Metro Area 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

Edge Cities 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

Philadelphia — The Edgeless interstates. Interestingly, the New Jersey side of

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 down-
town and edgeless office space. Among the 13
metropolitan areas in the study, Philadelphia and
Miami are at the most advanced stage of office
decentralization.
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 develop-
ment 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.
Philadelphia’s two modest-sized Edge Cities are
north and west of the downtown. Malvern-Paoli-
Wayne 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
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.
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

8 mall, near the intersection of the region’s major 71,882 square feet.

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 construct-
ed 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 analy-
sis. If most new space is built in areas with no public
transit access, then reliance on automobiles will con-
tinue to grow.
G R E AT E R P H I L A D E L P H I A R E G I O N A L R E V I E W S U M M E R 2 0 0 2
Even though many practitioners, planners, acade-
mics 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-to-
coast 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 develop-
ment — 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.