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Overview:
This lesson focuses on contemporary centers of transportation and trade known as "edge cities." During the freeway era the automobile has pushed the extreme of metropolitan development to fringe locations many miles (or kilometers) from older downtown areas. The suburban city has become increasingly independent of the downtown city. By the end of the twelfth grade, students should be able to evaluate the physical and human impacts of emerging urban forms in the present-day world.
Connections to the Curriculum:
Geography, economics
Connections to the National Geography Standards:
Standard 12: "The processes, patterns, and functions of human settlement"
Time:
Two hours
Materials Required:
- Computer with Internet access
- Road maps of metropolitan areas
Objectives:
Students will
- understand the evolving patterns and impacts of present-day urban areas;
- discuss "edge cities" with which they are familiar; and
- examine the implications of locating a company in a traditional downtown location versus in an edge city.
Geographic Skills:
Asking Geographic Questions
Acquiring Geographic Information
Answering Geographic Questions
Analyzing Geographic Information
S u g g e s t e d P r o c e d u r e
Opening:
Ask students to identify the places where they usually buy gas, eat fast food, or shop for clothes. Depending on where you live, some of their answers may include shopping and service areas away from historical urban centers.
Explain to students the recent phenomenon of edge cities that attract economic activities away from downtown areas.
Based on firsthand experience plus what they have seen in popular media, have your students list some of the features of an edge city. According to Joel Garreau, author of Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, these new communities:
- consist mostly of office buildings—the factories of the information age;
- are where most of the commercial office and retail development occurred in the United States during the real estate boom of the 1970s and 1980s;
- are not conventional suburbs;
- arose as urban cores from what 30 years ago was considered nothing but residential or rural space outside the old downtowns;
- are numerous (there are almost five times as many edge cities as there are downtowns of comparable size);
- are huge (each is larger than downtown Memphis, Tennessee or Providence, Rhode Island);
- have a population base dominated by white-collar workers;
- offer an urbane variety of goods and services as well as entertainment and restaurants;
- are widely perceived as one place, an end destination for mixed use, no matter how sprawling they may appear; and
- rarely have a formal political government with mayors or city councils.
Development:
Give your students a road map of a metropolitan area that includes an edge city. Examples include Framingham, Massachusetts; Schaumburg, Illinois; Reston, Virginia; Westheimer, Texas; Bellevue, Washington.
Choose an edge city that is familiar to you and your students. Hold a class discussion about that particular edge city and the older downtown area which it edges. What changes occurred to cause the development of the edge city? What types of industries or services have sprung up there? Who are the people that work and live in the edge city? What are their needs and how are those needs fulfilled away from a traditional downtown area?
Have students analyze the growth of another edge city. Why has it developed as it has? What are the major industries? Is there good transportation connecting the edge city to the older downtown area? Identify some of the positive aspects of such a place. (Examples: often lower rents than in the main city; more land to build on at lower prices; better parking for drive-in customers and employees; complementary businesses nearby; municipal or county tax breaks; reduction of pressure on downtown resources.) What are some of the negative aspects of the growth of the edge city? (Examples: existing road, power, and water infrastructure may not support new growth; movement from the inner city may cause neglect; loss of middle and upper income families may remove a large part of the older city's tax base.)
Closing:
Students should compare the notes from the various cities and evaluate their similarities and differences. Identify the changes in urban growth resulting from the development of edge cities. Evaluate and explain the physical and human impacts of the emerging urban centers.
Suggested Student Assessment:
Ask students to assume the role of a CEO looking for a place to build his or her business's headquarters. The location should provide housing, entertainment, and educational opportunities for the employees of the company. Have the students write a persuasive letter to the company's board of directors explaining their choice of an edge city as the ideal location. The criteria for an edge city should be included in the letter, including why the older downtown area associated with the edge city does not meet the needs of the company. Then have students write a similar letter justifying their choice of a traditional downtown location for the company's headquarters.
Extending the Lesson:
- Have students interview business owners in an edge city to learn their perceptions of the place. These would include changes to landscape, attitudes about their customers, and ideas about what might lie in the future for the edge city.
- Ask students to read "Don't Walk" by Joel Garreau in The New Republic, September 19 and 26, 1994. Have them discuss the cultural habits and values of those people who wish to live in an edge city.
Stan Masters of Blissfield Community School in Blissfield, Michigan, contributed classroom ideas for Standard 12.
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