All new city forms appear in their early stages to be chaotic. "There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the earth, moldering in the water, and unintelligible as any dream." This was Charles Dickens describing London in 1848, in his novel Dombey and Son. As I have indicated, sprawl has a functional logic that may not be apparent to those accustomed to more traditional cities. If that logic is understood imaginatively, as (H.G.) Wells and especially (Frank Lloyd) Wright attempted to do, then perhaps a matching aesthetic can be devised. Robert Fishman (1987) Bourgoise Utopias New York: Basic Books. P. 204
(EDGE CITIES) Edge Cities represent the third wave of lives pushing into new frontiers this half century. First, we moved our homes out past the traditional idea of what constituted a city. This was the suburbanization of America, particularly after World War II. Then, we wearied of returning to downtown for the necessities of life, so we moved our marketplaces out to where we lived. This was the malling of America, particularly during the 1960's and 1970's. Today, we have moved our means of creating wealth, the essence of urbanism -- our jobs -- out to where most of us have lived for two generations. That has lead to the rise of EDGE CITY. Joel Garreau 1988 Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. New York: Doubleday. P.4.