Bellevue Is A Perfect Host For `Edge-City' Conference -- It's Gaining Identity, Says Geographer

In case Bellevue residents wondered, they're no longer living in a suburban city, but an "edge city" - a town emerging from puberty to become a full-fledged city in its own right.

That was one of the themes of the "Emerging City" conference, which kicked off in Bellevue yesterday.

The three-day event, sponsored by the city of Bellevue and the University of Washington, has attracted about 100 officials and urban planners from up and down the West Coast.

The conference is focusing on edge cities for good reason.

"They represent the biggest change in 100 years in the way America grows," said Joel Garreau, a social geographer and senior writer for The Washington Post, who led off one of the panel discussions at the conference.

Edge cities have sprung up in suburban areas on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas, and now represent some of the most dynamic growth occurring in the United States, Garreau told the group.

Although edge cities are still dependent on the larger cities, as Bellevue is to Seattle, they are emerging as powerful regional forces.

For instance, in the 1992 elections, for the first time in U.S. history the majority of voters (52 percent) will come from edge cities, Garreau noted.

Garreau, who developed most of his themes in a book entitled "Edge City, Life on the New Frontier," said yesterday that there are now more than 120 such cities in the United States.

Although Bellevue, with a population of 87,000, is Washington's only true edge city, Garreau names the Technology Corridor along I-405, the I-90 Corridor (Mercer Island to Issaquah), and the Southcenter-Kent area as "wannabe" edge cities.

San Francisco has seven edge cities, Houston has nine, Washington, D.C., 16.

What makes a place an edge city?

"Office space is the key," Garreau said. "An edge city has 5 million square feet or more of office space." It also has to have at least 600,000 square feet of retail space and a larger population during the day than at night.

Some edge cities aren't cities at all but unincorporated areas, such as the Camelback region around Phoenix.

Edge cities, Garreau said, came about in three phases following World War II:

First, people moved to the suburbs (in Bellevue's case, the two bridges across Lake Washington made that possible), but continued to work and shop downtown.

Second, they began to shop in the suburbs as malls began popping up during the 1960s and 1970s (Bellevue Square filled the bill for Eastsiders).

Finally, they began working in the suburbs, too, as office parks and skyscrapers began popping up (in Bellevue, the third phase occurred during the late 1970s and through the 1980s).

For those who fear the suburbs becoming "urbs," Garreau has a generally upbeat message.

Edge cities represent "the most dedicated attempt at Utopia that we've seen in 100 years," he said. "The only question is, are we going to be good at it?"

Although edge cities tend to value green space and trails, and often resemble college campuses, he said, there is still some uncertainty about how they will develop because most have only been around for 20 or 30 years.

But major cities - Seattle, for instance - shouldn't be too worried about being upstaged by their edge-city neighbors, Garreau said. In every case, with the exception of Detroit, the downtowns of the bigger cities continue to flourish.

"The reason why we like our (major city) downtowns is that we view them as antiques, in the best sense of the word," Garreau said.

The conference, which ends tomorrow, is being held at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency Hotel.

-- Staff reporter Joni Balter contributed to this report.