EDGE CITIES: PERIPHERALIZING THE CENTER

Abstract

Within the last two decades, an ostensibly new urban phenomenon—the edge city—has taken root in the U.S. metropolis. Rather than treating this sighting as an objective event to be empirically verified, the focus here is on the concept's discursive qualities. Edge city's symbolic thrust, I argue, is to resolve the ambivalence Americans have toward their cities. Ultimately, however, it fails, floundering on flawed representational tactics and a misreading of the actual dynamics of U.S. urbanization. Our urban ambivalence remains intact.