New Patterns:The PolycentricMetropolis 453 eral A U.N. study of 20 megacitiesfound that every one and decentralizedurban landscapesof late-twentieth-cen- of them had at least one major pollutant at levels ex- tury North America.a The galactic metropolis evolved )t ceeding\forld Health Organization (VHO) guidelines. from the traditional pattern of concentric zonesas sec- 5a Fourteen of the 20 had two major pollutants exceeding ondary businessdistricts and commercial strips emerged er 'eo WHO guidelines, and sevenhad three. Such pollution is in the suburbs to cater to neighborhood shopping and not only unpleasantbut dangerous.In Manila, the Philip- serviceneeds and decentralizedindustrial districts devel- l0 use pines, the Asian Development Bank found levels of sus- oped around airports and freeway interchanges.Subse- lent pendedparticulate matter in the air to be 200-400 percent quently, edgecities grew into suburban hubs of shopsand ts above guideline levels.In Mexico City, where sulfur diox- officesthat sometimesovershadow the old central business n ide and lead concentrations are two to four times higher districts. Edge cities are nodal concentrationsof shopping than the \fHO guidelines,and where national ozonelev- and office space situated on the fringes of metropolitan els are exceededon more than half of the days through- areas,typically near major highway intersections.Tysons t out the year,seven in 10 newborns have dangerouslyhigh Corner, Virginia, just outside lWashington'sbeltway, pro- tct- levelsof lead in their bloodstream.WHO studiesdemon- vides a good example (Figure 11.32). en- strate that it is unhealthy for human beingsto breathe air The result is a polycentric metropolitan structure that d with more than 100 to 1.20parts per billion (ppb) of ozone now has variants around the world. GeographerPeter rob- contaminants for more than one day a year.Yet Mexico Hall has identified six common types of nodes within the City residentsbreathe this level, or more, for over 300 polycentricmetropolis:5 daysa year.In Bangkok, Thailand, where air pollution is t The traditional dountoun center, based on walking almost as severeas in Mexico City, research has shown distancesand servedby a radial transportation center. that lead-bearingair pollutants reduce children'sIQ by The hub of the traditional metropolis, it has become an averageof 3.5 points per year until they are sevenyears the setting for the oldest informational services:bank- old. It has also been estimatedthat Bangkok's pall of dust ing, insurance,and government.Examples include the and smokecauses more than 1,400 deathseach year and City of London, Chitelet-Les Halles (Paris),lower $3.1 billion eachyear in lost productivity resultingfrom Manhattan, and Maronouchi/Otemachi (Tokyo). traffic and pollution-linked illnesses. Proximity to industrial facilities,often the result of t Newer business centers, often developing in an old the need and desire of the poor to live near placesof em- prestigiousresidential quarter and serving as a set- ployment, posesanother set of risks. A notorious acci- ting for newer servicessuch as corporate headquar- dent at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, in ters, the media, advertising, public relations, and 1984 caused2,988 deathsand more than 100,000 in- design. Examples include London's $ZestEnd, the juries, mostly among residentsof the shantytownsnear 16th Arrondissment in Paris, midtown Manhattan, the chemical factory. and Akasaki/Roppongi(Tokyo). t Internal edge cities, resulting from pressure for space s for in traditional centersand speculativedevelopment in ada- nearbyobsolescent industrial or transportationsites. ,ople NEWPATTERNS: THE POLYCENTRIC Examples include London's Docklands, La D6fense i res- METROPOLIS (Paris),and Shinjuku (Tokyo). ruch t External edge cities, often located on an axis with a ding Traditional patterns of land use and spatial organization major airport, sometimesadjacent to a high-speed may in many parts of the world are being transformed by the train station,always linked to an urban freewaysys- hose local effects of splintering urbanism. Economic and cul- tem. Examples include'Washington'sDulles corridor, tural globalization, together with the uneven evolution London's Heathrow district, the O'Hare areain Chica- lrm- of networked infrastructures of information and com- go, Schipol(Amsterdam), and Arlanda (Stockholm). nod- munications technologies,is forging new landscapesof t Outermost edge-ci4t for rbile innovation, economic development,and cultural trans- complexes back offices and R&D operations,typically near major train stations pol- formation, while at the same time intensifying social and 30 to 50 kilometers(18.6 to 31 miles)from main ides, economicinequalities between the fast world and the slow the core.Examples include Reading (outside London); St. lem- world. As we noted in Chapter 10, thesetrends are most (Paris); rinto pronounced in world cities and major regional metropol- Quentin-en-Yvelines Greenwich, Connecticut (outsideNew York); and Shin-Yokohama(Tokyo). rg of itan centers,particularly in core countries. Nevertheless, low- fragmentsof this splintering urbanism are increasinglyev- ly to ident throughout the world as new technologies,new forms aP. ient, of economic organization, and new sociocultural norms Lewis, "The GalacticMetropolis." In R. Platt and G. Macuriko, orne spreadthrough the global urban system. eds.,Beyond the Urban Fringe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1983, pp. 2349. l^t^, North American cities were the first to break away 5P. Hall, "Global City-Regions in the Twenty-first Century." In A. J. p air from traditional patterns. GeographerPierce Lewis coined Scott, ed., Clobal City-Regions: Trends, Tbeory Policy. New York: i the term "galactic metropolis" to capture the dislointed Oxford University Press,2001, pp. 59-77. 454 CHAPTER11 CitvSoaces:Urban Structure Figure11.32 TysonsCorner, Vir- ginia An edge city locatedon the beltway outsideWashington, D.C., TysonsCorner is an unincorporated area that contains45,000 residents and over 100,000 jobs. TysonsCor- ner does not existas a postalad- dress:residents' mail mustgo either to Viennaor McLean,Virginia. But thisanonymous city containsa huge concentrationof commercial space (the eighth largestof all downtown CBDs in the UnitedStates in 2000), including more than 27 million squarefeet of office space,several million squarefeet of retailspace, nine major departmentstores, more than 3,500 hotelrooms, and parking for more than 90,000 cars. : Specialized subcenters,usually for education, enter- centralcitylike challenges-aging infrastructure,deterio- tainment,and sporting complexes,exhibition and rating schoolsand commercialcorridors, and inadequate convention centers.These take a great variety of housing.At the other end are the boomburbs of the west- forms and locations.Some are on reclaimedor recy- ern United States:new tracts of sprawling, low-density, cled land closeto the traditional core;some are older and auto-dependentsuburbs that are growing at a fever- centers,formerly separateand independent,that have ish paceat the fringe of metropolitan areas. Figr becclmeprogressively embedded in the wider metro- In many metropolitanareas the changingface of sub- spra politan area. urbia is fueling an intensedebate about the quality, pace, and shapeof growth. Central to the debateis the ideaof The largestof the world's polycentric metropolises smart growth. Smart growth is a package of suburban asr havebecome "100-mile giliss"-mslropolitan regionsthat land-useplanning principlesdesigned to curb sprawl. Its basr are literally 100 miles or so across,consisting of a loose advocatesclaim that growth restrictionsraise the quality are coalition of urban realms,or economicsubregions bound of life, increasethe efficiencyof urban infrastructureand and togetherthrough urban freeways.In some regions,clus- protect the environment.Among the key principlesof gro' ters of networked, polycentric metropoliseshave devel- smart growth are the following: gro' opedinto cohesive"megapolitan" regions (see Box 11.2: tion "Megapolitan Regions." r preservinglarge areasof open spaceand protecting the quality of the environment by settingaside large prol fringe areaswhere developmentis prohibited; fecti Sprawl r redevelopinginner suburbs and infill siteswith new tog Inherentin the polycentricmetropolis and endemicto most and renovatedstructures to make them more arrrac- cult contemporaryurbanization is suburbansprawl. The Unit- tive to middle- and upper income households; no!! ed Statesis the exemplar (Figure 11.33). Between 1985 r reducing dependencyon private automotive vehi- cutt and 2000, when the populationof U.S.metropolitan areas cles-especially one-personcars-by requiring high- witl increasedby 17 percent,about 25 million acresof farm- er density development, clustering high density blea land and open space(roughly the sizeof Indiana)was de- gas around transit stops,raising taxes,and increasing parl veloped around these metropolitan areas:a 47 percent public investmentin light-rail transit systems; out r increasein developedland. Since1985, the 100 largestur- r encouraginginnovative urban designand zoning reg- calle banizedareas have sprawled out over an additional 37,670 ulationsthat createpedestrian-friendly communities, a fat squarekilometers (74,545 square miles). In the polycentric mixed land uses,and commercial centerslclcated at com metropolis,suburbs are no longer just bedroom commu- transit stops; of s< nitiesfor