Looking through the Sunday newspaper this week, I noticed an article in the Style section that was written by Joel Garreau. Whenever I see anything with his byline I always take notice, for he spends his productive hours looking into the cultural future in an attempt to explain why things are happening the way that they are. And I think that’s neat.
I first took notice of his work when I bought and read his first book The Nine Nations of North America (1981). To summarize it in a sentence, he discarded the political boundaries of No. America and divided the continent into nine distinct cultural regions and showed us what is happening to make them individual along with some predictions based on the trends.
The book was so fascinating to me that when his next one came out ten years later, I bought it too. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (1991) was even more valuable for my self-education because it gave terrific insight to a transformation that was going on all around me that I was puzzled over. Garreau was explaining why these huge commercial and office centers are springing up like gangbusters all around (but outside of) the older, large cities where there were still plenty of viable office buildings available complete with an existing transportation system.
As a firefighter, finding the answers to this major cultural shift was very enlightening because it was happening all around me and the department I worked for. Even though I already knew what was happening, finding out the why and having the future trends exposed to me was quite satisfying. If you’re looking for a good non-fiction book to read, I think you would do well to read Edge City even though it’s got 17 years of age on it.
Back to Sunday’s article, Garreau is pointing us toward the next commercial shift. Specifically, the growing collection of vacant “big box” stores that every suburban center is starting to deal with. As Joel points out, all commercial trends are temporary and the consumers are always fickle in their preferences. Add in the natural process of retailers eventually going out of business and you have “big box” caverns starting to empty out. Remember K-Mart? And we’ve been observing here the inevitable demise of Circuit City. Both of those retailers began their business in strip mall stores and then followed the shoppers to the big box centers. And this month the Linens & Things chain began liquidating. Thus the natural cycle of birth, growth and demise of the retail business.
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Garreau is the principle member of The Garreau Group which is a think tank “dedicated to the creation of more liveable and profitable urban areas worldwide” and he is challenging architects and imagineers to come up with ideas and designs on what to do with these huge concrete hulks with the 20-ft. ceilings.
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I’m running out of space here, but if you want to take a peek into the future of your shopping district, read his article from this past Sunday’s Washington Post HERE. And take a look at some of the imaginative uses that his team has come up with HERE.
The next time you’re at headquarters, ask the fire marshal if the codes are ready for these transformations. That’s just one more thing for us to worry about. Ok, let’s get this equipment checked out. I need to get the coffee started. See you in the day room.
