Out in Las Vegas, on the west side of town, next to the lovely Red Rock Scenic Area, a new shopping mall is nearing completion.
Instead of the traditional indoor mall look, it is laid out in a grid pattern resembling city blocks and there will be office space as well as retail sales and restaurants. The plan is to add large office buildings around it to attract large companies and bring business other than gambling to Las Vegas. Condos and apartments will be added, as well as hope for a 'triple A baseball stadium smack in the center.'
But this isn't suburban sprawl. Nope, it's called an Edge City.
This is how it is described:
Edge City:
"The textbook definition includes at least 5 million square feet of Class A office space and 600,000 square feet of retail. Edge cities also have more jobs than bedrooms. They’re viewed by residents as a distinct place, and they were empty tracts of land 30 years ago.
But that basic concept is deceptively sophisticated: Edge cities are actually “the biggest revolution in 150 years in how we build cities,†said Garreau, the Lincoln professor of law, culture and values at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and a Future Tense Fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington. “Cities have been cradles of civilization for 8,000 years. So if we redefine how and where cities are created, we’re redefining who we are, how we got that way, where we’re headed and what makes us tick.â€
But what about all those other 'edge cities' aka 'The Suburbs' built around strip malls and central shopping malls that have flourished, peaked and languished into ghost towns over the past 60 years? Calling it something else and declaring it innovative doesn't mean that it is.