Edge City UK: Abomination or new urban form?

Three decades ago, the Washington Post writer Joel Garreau published his book Edge City. It was subtitled ’Life on the new American frontier’, and it caused a huge stir on both sides of the Atlantic.

In it, he identified a new kind of place - often yet to be recorded on a road atlas - that was shaping the way Americans lived. But what about the UK? Has the erosion of our planning system - not to mention the covid lockdowns, and our crumbling high streets - been sending us in a similar direction?

David Boyle and Lesley Yarranton both followed the debate from opposite sides of the world, when the UK shuddered at the edge city idea. But a great deal has changed since then. This book takes them in search of a British version of a big American ideal.

With a foreword by Sue Pritchard, chief executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.