Introduction: Pioneers, Frontiers, and the Twenty-first Century

The controversial assumption undergirding this book is that Americans basically are pretty smart cookies who generally know what they're doing.

Lord knows, we have sorely tested that premise over the last four centuries. But it is further assumed that this good sense is especially evident when Americans cussedly march off in precisely the opposite directions from those toward which our elders and betters have been aiming us. At such times of apparently rampant perversity, this thinking goes, the correct response is not to throw up one's hands and decry Americans as fools. It is to echo Gandhi when he said, "There go my people; I must rush to catch up with them, for I am their leader."

Chapter 1: The Search for the Future Inside Ourselves – Life on the New Frontier

"But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory." —Huckleberry Finn, at the close of Mark Twain's novel, 1885

Chapter 2: New Jersey – Tomorrowland

"For these are not as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization, but are the temporary encampments and outposts of the civilization that we—you and I—shall build." —John Cheever, 1978

Chapter 3: Boston – Edge City Limits

"Form ever follows function." —Louis Sullivan, 1886

Chapter 4: Detroit – The Automobile, Individualism, and Time

"Americans are in the habit of never walking if they can ride." —Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, 1798

Chapter 5: Atlanta – The Color of Money

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963

Chapter 6: Phoenix – Shadow Government

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want . . . and deserve to get it, good and bad." —H. L. Mencken.

Chapter 7: Texas – Civilization

What happened to you living in England—what exactly did you see?

"I saw how much more in tune I am with a forceful society like our own, fueled by immigration, where the ambition is naked and the animus is undisguised and the energy is relentless and expended openly, without embarrassment or apology. I'm speaking of intellectual and literary intensity no less than the intensity behind all the American trash, the intensity that's generated by the American historical drama of movement and mas-sive displacement, of class overspreading class, region overtaking region, minority encroaching on minority, and the media cannibalizing the works. Try to imagine England inviting, on the scale that the U.S. does, the cultural and political clash." —Philip Roth, 1988

Chapter 8: Southern California – Community

"Man is returning to the descendants of the wandering tribe--the adventurers, I hope." —Frank Lloyd Wright, 1958

Chapter 9: The San Francisco Bay Area – Soul

"Until it has had a poet, a place is not a place." —Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

Chapter 10: Washington – The Land

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." —William Faulkner

Chapter 11: The List – Edge Cities Coast to Coast

This is a select compilation of Edge Cities in North America.

Although this is one of the more thorough such lists at this writing (1991), the nature of the beast doubtless makes it incomplete. Edge Cities are a function of growth; they change. In a time and place of rapid expansion, as in the Washington region of the late 1980s, the number of Edge Cities swelled from thirteen to sixteen in two years. By the same token, while the area around Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport does not qualify as a mature Edge City in the early 1990s, that is probably not a permanent condition.

Chapter 12: The Words – Glossary of a New Frontier

The builders of Edge City—the developers and their cohorts—are the biggest gossips since federal prosecutors, and for the same reason: they are constantly trying to figure out what makes human beings tick. As professional gossips, they have evolved their own code. It includes:

Chapter 13: The Laws – How We Live

The North Star of moral certitudes, or at least prayerful assumptions, for developers is that human nature, and hence the marketplace, is rational. Hence, predictable. Therefore, they believe, all they have to do is figure out what the rules of human behavior are, and they will be rewarded greatly. There are two things they find most perplexing:

Acknowledgments

Any large-scale look at America ends up involving a legion of co-conspirators, I've discovered. Hundreds of people all over the country contributed interviews, information, candid advice, incisive readings, and lasting companionship to this effort. It quite simply could not have been done without them. I regret that I cannot either thank each of them here or cite them all adequately in the text. Any errors of fact, emphasis, or interpretation in this volume are entirely my own. However:

Suggested Reading

Edge City draws on the efforts of many thoughtful people. It is not possible to list all their works. So this, instead, is a cull of items that I think the general reader may find useful, enjoyable, and even startling. Many of these, in turn, have bibliographies and notes that lead off in yet more directions.

This is a personal list—hardly an attempt at a complete one. Nor is it a list of prime sources. Many of those were interviews, several were computer runs, and more than a few were too boring to inflict casually on other human beings. Readers with specific questions about resources and research opportunities are welcome to contact the author in care of The Edge City Group, Broad Run, VA 22014-9501.