Edge City

First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in a hundred years in how they live, work, and play-Edge Cities. Joel Garreau spent four years exploring America's Edge Cities-the communities consisting of corporate headquarters, fitness centers, and shopping plazas, of single-family homes, of freeways, jetways, and jogging paths that are sprouting up in every expanding metropolis in America. Garreau explains how these cities are changing our lives in countless ways, many of them elemental and profound. He examines everything from the kinds of jobs Edge Cities generate to whether they will ever be good places in which to fall in love or hold a Fourth of July parade to how they reflect the perpetually unfinished American business of reinventing ourselves. A sweeping and important book.