As real estate markets, they have made huge numbers of home owners and speculators rich. As bazaars they provide some of the most luxurious shopping in the world. And they represent, on average, an improvement in energy consumption over the old suburb-central city downtown arrangements, since they move everything closer to the homes of the middle class. Edge City is criticized because of its newness. We compare it to old cities that were in their beginnings equally chaotic and hodgepodge as Edge Cities are today.
Edge cities are works in progress.
We are only now realizing that they are cities at all. Edge cities are only 10 or 20 years old. It took Venice 500 years to become what it is today. London and Paris are so wonderful because all their mistakes have been torn down. Edge City is a 20th century creation, just as Manhattan is a 19th Century creation.