I. Introduction

The last 20 years brought a dramaticshift in the location of office employ-ment in metropolitan America awayfrom central cities and into the sub-

urbs. The boom in suburban officedevelopment occurred largely in the 1980s,during which time over half (58 percent) ofthe suburban office space that exists todaywas built. While the pace of office construc-tion slowed in the 1990s, the overall trendtoward suburbanization continued. In total,almost four-fifths (79 percent) of the currentsuburban stock was constructed from 1980 to

1999.2 While office buildings were the lastmajor element of central cities to suburbanize—following residences and retail establish-ments—by 1999, 42 percent of commercialoffice space nationally was located in subur-ban areas.3

The evolving geography of office locationhas implications not only for the substantialnumber of employees who go to work eachday in office buildings, but for the local lead-ers who must grapple with the policy issuesthese new trends bring forth. For example,the dispersal of new office space can exacer-bate a region’s jobs/housing mismatch, orwiden the distance between economic oppor-

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 1Cen

“This analysis

shows that South

Florida is per-

haps the most

centerless large

office market

in the U.S.”

Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy

■ Of 13 large U.S. office marketsstudied, South Florida had the low-est percentage of its office space in its major downtown, Miami, in 1999. Only 13 percent of SouthFlorida’s office space is located in itscentral business district (CBD), com-pared to a median of nearly 30 percentfor all 13 markets.

■ Virtually all office growth in Miami-Dade County in the past 15 yearsoccurred outside of Miami’s down-town. From 1987 to 2002, Miami-Dade’s non-CBD market grew 60.3percent to include nearly 30 millionsquare feet of office space.

In contrast, office space in Miami’sCBD increased just 4.7 percent overthis time period.

■ Out of 13 office markets, SouthFlorida has the largest percentage ofits office space located in “EdgelessCities”—a form of small-scale andscattered office development thatnever reaches the critical mass of anEdge City. In 1999, two-thirds (66percent) of South Florida’s currentoffice space could be found in Edge-less Cities. In Philadelphia—the onlyother predominantly “edgeless” marketof the 13—Edgeless Cities contain just54 percent of the market’s office space.

FindingsAn analysis of office development in South Florida between 1987 and 2002 finds that:

Beyond Edge City: Office Sprawl in South FloridaRobert E. Lang1

tunity and concentrations of minorityhouseholds.4 Office location can alsofacilitate urban sprawl. If most newoffice space is constructed at theregional edge, it extends commutersheds for many miles into undevelopedrural areas and fuels decentralization.5

F i n a l l y, the geography of office locationfigures prominently in transportationanalysis. If most new space is built in areas with no public transit access,then reliance on automobiles will continue to grow.6

The distribution of urban and subur-ban office space—and hence theappropriate policy responses to it—isnot uniform across all regions, how-e v e r. The majority of office space inthe Chicago and New York metropoli-tan areas, for example, lies within theirrespective core central cities, while the suburbs boast a larger share inPhiladelphia and Detroit. This studyseeks to provide a better understandingof the spatial structure of office development in one region—SouthFlorida—and how it compares withdevelopment patterns in metropolitanareas around the nation. It concludeswith a discussion of how leaders in thisregion can address the policy concernsthat arise from the report’s findings.

II. South Florida

Known for it beaches, touristattractions, and retirees,South Florida has grown intoa complicated multicultural

community with a major presence inthe international economy.7 SouthFlorida differs substantially from thenorthern parts of the state in that it isculturally and demographically notpart of the American South.8 Theregion has been settled by two majoroutside groups. The first group con-sists of domestic immigrants from theNorth, especially the New York region.The other includes international immi-grants from Latin America,predominantly Cuba.

Geographically, South Florida is a

three-county region that includesMiami-Dade, Broward, and PalmBeach counties. In essence, SouthFlorida really means—given the presence to the West of the Ever-glades—Southeast Florida. And thatencompasses Miami-Dade County andBroward County—which togethercomprise the Miami-Fort LauderdaleConsolidated Metropolitan StatisticalArea (CMSA)—plus the separate MSAof Palm Beach County.

All of South Florida has experiencedrapid expansion for decades and con-tinues this fast population growth.Most of the building has taken place inthe past half century, making it, alongwith such other Sunbelt boom metrop-olises as Phoenix and Las Vegas, one ofthe newest places in America.

The western parts of all three SouthFlorida counties developed later thanthose further east. That is becausethese western lands were once part ofthe Everglades, which until recentlycovered most of Florida’s southern tip.The newly developed parts of SouthFlorida include the western parts ofBroward and Palm Beach countiesthat press up against the remainingEverglades. Due to a federally man-dated urban growth boundary, thiswestern expansion has now ended.Much of the region is now built out,with some of the last new greenfieldsubdivisions popping up this past yearin Broward County. A regional plan-ning movement has emerged aroundthe idea of encouraging new growth tostay to the east—hence its name,“Eastward Ho!”

III. Definitions and Methodology

This report employs a uniquemethod for classifying officelocation that is based on astudy of 13 large metropolitan

office markets: Atlanta, Boston,Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Denver,Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, NewYork City, Philadelphia, San Francisco,

and Washington, D.C.9 It deploys sev-eral data sources to provide multipleperspectives on office space develop-ment trends in both South Florida as awhole, and in Miami-Dade Countyspecifically, and it compares the mar-kets to the national sample of 13. Inthis fashion, the study first exploresdifferences in the distribution of cen-tral business district (CBD) andnon-CBD office space. Then, it devel-ops a new, more specific,categorization that segments the officespace market into a downtown seg-ment, an Edge City segment, and onethat encompasses Edgeless Cities.(See the appendix for more detail ondata and sources.)

CBD versus Non-CBD Office SpaceThe standard business categories forreporting office data are CBD andnon-CBD. CBD space refers to down-town office buildings. Downtowns varyin size and scale, but they typicallycontain the largest single concentra-tion of a region’s office space.10 InSouth Florida, that location is down-town Miami.

Non-CBD office space is everythingelse. Much of this non-CDB space liesin suburbs, although some offices maybe found within the central city out-side the CBD. Non-CBD office spacevaries tremendously in its size, scale,density, location, age, and land usecharacteristics. The category in thissense captures every office locationtype from low-rise, low-density officebuildings in the farthest reaches of theexurbs to high-density “uptowns” thatarose as secondary business districtswithin the central city. “Non-CBD” isthus a grab-bag category that capturesall office space outside a CBD.

Cushman and Wakefield, thenation’s largest full-service real estatefirm, tracks office development inMiami-Dade County using theCBD/non-CBD divide.11 This studyuses the Cushman and Wakefield datato examine changes in the Miami-

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series2 CE N T E R O N UR B A N A N D ME T R O P O L I TA N PO L I C Y

Dade market from 1987 to 2002. Theperiod of analysis captures a marketpeak in 1987 (a 1986 change in taxlaws, which eliminated the passive lossprovision, dampened much of thefinancial fuel for the office boom), abust in the early 1990s, a recovery inthe mid-1990s, and a leveling-offperiod in the early 2000s.

Downtowns, Edge Cities, andEdgeless Cities The complexity of commercial realestate marketplaces, however, ensuresthat the broad categories of CBD andnon-CBD do not permit analysis thataccurately reflects the shifts occur-ring in metropolitan regions. For thatreason, this report conducts a finer-grained analysis that utilizes a newcategorization: downtown, EdgeCities, and Edgeless Cities. Fourmaps that accompany this section,taken from Black’s Guide (a leadingresource in the commercial realestate industry), illustrate the differ-ences in office space concentrationthat distinguish the various types ofoffice locale.

Downtowns lie at the center of theregion and are often the original site ofsignificant commercial development.There are also “secondary downtowns,”which often originated in the early 20th

century as satellite downtowns of theprimary downtown.12 In South Florida,Miami is the primary downtown andFort Lauderdale a secondary one. (SeeMaps 1 and 2.)

Edge Cities have a specific defini-tion that appears in the literature onsuburban office development. JoelGarreau first used the term “EdgeCity” in his 1991 book Edge City: Lifeon the New Frontier. Edge Cities asdefined by Garreau are places thathave the following characteristics:

• Five million square feet or more ofoffice space

• 600,000 square feet or more of retailspace

• More jobs than bedrooms

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 3CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Map 2. Ft. Lauderdale Is a Secondary Downtown

Map 1. Miami Is a Downtown

Source: Black’s Guide

Source: Black’s Guide

= one building

= one building

• Are perceived by the population asone place

• Were nothing like a “city” as recentlyas thirty years ago13

This study deems any contiguousconcentration of office space thatexceeds five million square feet and isless than 30 years old an Edge City.Edge Cities, in practice, are sizableoffice and retail concentrations thatsprang up in the 1970s and 1980s insuch locales as Tysons Corner (Fairfax,VA), Post Oak (Houston, TX), andPerimeter Center (Atlanta, GA). Butthere is no requirement that theseoffice clusters contain significantretail space. The developments aroundMiami International Airport and BocaRaton are the region’s only major EdgeCities. (See Map 3.)

The report also employs anothernon-CBD office location category—the Edgeless City.14 Edgeless Cities, asthe term implies, lack a well-definedboundary or edge. Edgeless Citiesextend over dozens of square miles ofurban space. Individual components ofEdgeless Cities often have an identity(as “so-and-so” office park), but collec-tively these places seldom strike acasual observer as unified in anymeaningful way. Thus, unlike EdgeCities, Edgeless Cities are not per-ceived as one place. In effect, the term“Edgeless City” refers to office sprawl.Edgeless Cities capture all non-down-town space that is not in an Edge City.They scatter far and wide around theregion—some sweep around the met-ropolitan edge, while others fill thegaps between Edge Cities. In SouthFlorida, much of northern BrowardCounty constitutes an extended Edge-less City, especially around CoconutCreek. (See Map 4.)

This analysis uses 1999 data fromBlack’s Guide to describe downtown,Edge City, and Edgeless City officedevelopment in the three counties thatcomprise South Florida.

IV. Findings

A. Of 13 large U.S. office marketsstudied, South Florida had the low-est percentage of its office spacelocated in its primary downtown,Miami, in 1999.

In absolute square footage of officespace, Miami’s downtown is the small-est primary downtown among the 13downtowns compared in this study, andFort Lauderdale is the second smallestsecondary downtown. In fact, at only12.7 million square feet, downtown

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series4 CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Map 3. Miami Airport Is an Edge City

= one building

Source: Black’s Guide

Miami has less office space than thetop dozen of the nation’s Edge Cities.15

Not surprisingly, South Florida alsohas the smallest share of all officespace in its metro area located in itsdowntown. Table 1 shows the typologyof metro areas by office space distribu-tion, using Black’s Guide data for1999. New York (57 percent) andChicago (54 percent) maintain the

largest regional shares of office spacein their downtowns, while the percent-age of downtown space in Dallas andDetroit is very small (21 percenteach). South Florida (13 percent) hasthe smallest CBD relative to its metro-politan area market. Note that thetotal share of non-CBD office space inthe 13 metros exceeds that in the met-ros’ CBDs by a factor of 70 to 30.

In terms of office space per capita,South Florida compares fairly well,coming in just below the median. Butcompared to the other 13 metropolitanregions, South Florida has the largestdisparity between its quantity of CBDand non-CBD office space.

B. Virtually all office growth inMiami-Dade County in the past 15years has occurred outside ofMiami’s downtown. In 1987, Miami’s CBD had 11.1 million square feet of office spaceavailable and a 28 percent vacancyrate. (See Table 2.) Fifteen years later,Miami’s CBD had increased just 4.7percent to include 11.7 million squarefeet of available office space. At thesame time, however, the vacancy ratefell 41.4 percent to 16.4 percent.While very little office space was builtin Miami’s CBD, vacancy rates fell asbusinesses moved into already existingoffice buildings. In other cases, busi-nesses upgraded their space, movinginto new structures as their vacatedoffices were phased out of the market.

The figures for non-CBD officespace in the past 15 years tell a verydifferent story. In 1987, Miami-Dade’snon-CBD market had 18.2 millionsquare feet of office space availableand a 22.6 percent vacancy rate. By2002, this market had grown 60.3 per-cent to include nearly 30 millionsquare feet of office space, whilevacancy rates had dropped 17.7 per-cent to 18.6 percent. Thus, the vastmajority of Miami-Dade’s office growthover the last decade and a halfoccurred in the non-CBD markets. Thedisparity in growth rates between CBDand non-CBD office space explains theconsiderable decrease in the overallshare of CBD office space in the metroarea during this time period.

Parallel to trends over the past 15years, the 1997 to 2002 data showsoffice space growth in Miami-Dade’snon-CBD market continuing to out-pace growth in the downtown. Table 3provides a more fine-grained view of

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 5CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Map 4. Coconut Creek Is an Edgeless City

= one building

Source: Black’s Guide

changes in Miami’s CBD and non-CBD submarkets during this period,however. Interestingly, a part ofMiami’s CBD actually grewrespectably—the Brickell Avenue sub-

market, which lies just south of theMiami River from downtown, gainedover a half million square feet since1997. By contrast, downtown barelyregistered any growth.

Changes in Miami-Dade’s non-CBDsubmarkets are more complicated.Overall they grew by over 27 percent,but many submarkets are far off fromthe cumulative rate. In fact, the Coral

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series6 CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Table 2. Miami-Dade Office Inventory, CBD versus Non-CBD, 1987 to 2002

1987 Office Space 2002 Office Space PercentMarket MSF MSF Change in InventoryCBD 11.1 11.7 4.7Non-CBD 18.2 29.2 60.3

CDB Share of Total Office Space 37.9% 28.6%

1987 Percent 2002 Percent PercentMarket Vacancy Rate Vacancy Rate Change in VacancyCBD 28.0 16.4 -41.4Non-CBD 22.6 18.6 -17.7

Note: MSF = Millions of Square Feet

Source: Cushman and Wakefield

Table 1. Typology of Metropolitan Areas by Office Space Distribution, 1999Ranked by Share of Metro Areas’ Office Space in the CBD

Office Space Office Space MSF Metro Share in: Per Capita

Metropolitan Area CBD non-CBD Total CBD non-CBD (square feet)Majority of Office Space in CBDNew York 390.1 298.2 688.4 56.7 43.3 34.2Chicago 134.3 114.8 249.1 53.9 46.1 28.3Above a Quarter of Office Space in CBDBoston 56.7 94.7 151.4 37.5 62.5 26.9Philadelphia 54.8 105.3 160.1 34.2 65.8 26.7San Francisco 60.1 117.2 177.3 33.9 66.1 26.0Denver 23.5 53.8 77.3 30.4 69.6 32.7Los Angeles 44.8 240.1 284.9 29.8 84.3 18.1Washington 79.8 199.4 279.2 28.6 71.4 59.7Below a Quarter of Office Space in CBDAtlanta 31.1 101.1 132.2 23.5 76.5 35.3Houston 38.0 127.1 165.1 23.0 77.0 37.5Detroit 16.8 61.9 78.7 21.3 78.7 14.4Dallas 30.6 118.4 149.0 20.5 79.5 31.0South Florida 12.7 84.2 96.9 13.1 86.9 26.5Total for all Markets 973.3 1,716.2 2,689.6 31.0 69.0 29.2Median 44.8 114.8 29.8 71.4 28.3

Note: Manhattan data is from Cushman and Wakefield Research and the Real Estate Board of New York

MSF = millions of square feet

Sources: Black’s Guide and the U.S. Bureau of the Census Metropolitan Area Population Estimates, 1998 (MA-98-1)

Way and Coconut Grove submarketsactually lost some office space—0.9percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.The Biscayne Corridor, South Miami,and East Airport submarkets onlyfaired slightly better with modestgains, but the Kendall/South Dade andMiami Beach submarkets boomed,with gains of 40 and 105 percent,respectively.

C. Out of 13 office markets, SouthFlorida has the largest percentage ofits office space located in EdgelessCities.Table 4 shows the percentage of officespace in South Florida using the cate-gories of Downtown, Edge Cities, andEdgeless Cities. It indicates that of thenearly 23 million square feet of officespace added in South Florida in the1990s, almost 60 percent was located

in Edgeless Cities. The two down-towns accounted for 15.5 percent, andthe Edge Cities for one-quarter of theinventory (24.8 percent). This growthwas in fact small relative to the boomof the 1980s, during which 55 millionsquare feet of office space—over halfof the South Florida’s total in 1999—was constructed, 67.2 percent withinEdgeless Cities.

By 1999, two-thirds (66 percent) of

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 7CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Table 3. Miami-Dade Office Inventory, CBD versus Non-CBD Submarkets, 1997 to 2002

Market/Submarket 1997 Office Space 2002 Office Space Change Percent ChangeCBD 11,092,272 11,645,736 553,464 5.0

Brickell Avenue 4,684,711 5,222,497 537,786 11.5Downtown 6,407,561 6,423,239 15,678 0.2

Non-CBD 22,922,594 29,161,476 6,238,882 27.2Coral Gables 3,856,022 4,781,169 925,147 24.0Airport/West Dade 7,037,169 9,877,507 2,840,338 40.4Coral Way 586,070 580,711 -5,359 -0.9Kendall/South Dade 2,846,147 3,986,627 1,140,480 40.1Northeast Dade 1,710,785 1,887,235 176,450 10.3Biscayne Corridor 1,571,473 1,623,932 52,459 3.3Miami Lakes 1,234,496 1,454,100 219,604 17.8Coconut Grove 961,110 860,572 -100,538 -10.5South Miami 1,318,445 1,410,224 91,779 7.0East Airport 910,217 1,002,500 92,283 10.1Miami Beach 827,660 1,696,899 869,239 105.0

Total 34,014,866 40,807,212 6,792,346 20.0

Source: Cushman and Wakefield

Table 4. South Florida: Downtowns, Edge Cities and Edgeless Cities, Pre-1980 to 1999

By Year BuiltTotal Office Space 1999 1990–1999 1980–1989 Pre-1980Square SF % of Square SF % of Square SF % of Square SF % of Footage Metro Area Footage Metro Area Footage Metro Area Footage Metro Area

Downtown 17,053,213 17.6% 3,542,330 15.5% 8,837,543 16.0% 4,673,340 24.8%Miami 12,678,884 13.1% 1,451,558 6.4% 6,887,664 12.5% 4,339,662 23.0%Fort Lauderdale 4,374,329 4.5% 2,090,772 9.2% 1,949,879 3.5% 333,678 1.8%

Edge Cities 16,077,609 16.6% 5,658,359 24.8% 9,253,906 16.8% 1,165,344 6.2%Boca Raton 6,870,513 7.1% 2,757,411 12.1% 3,653,398 6.6% 459,704 2.4%Miami Airport 9,207,096 9.5% 2,900,948 12.7% 5,600,508 10.1% 705,640 3.7%

Edgeless Cities 63,774,416 65.8% 13,625,873 59.7% 37,148,553 67.2% 12,999,990 69.0%TOTAL 96,905,238 100% 22,826,562 100% 55,240,002 100% 18,838,674 100%

Source: Black’s Guide

South Florida’s current office spacecould be found in Edgeless Cities. Therest was about evenly split betweendowntown (18 percent) and Edge City(17 percent) space. In fact, in 1999South Florida was the most edgelessmetropolis of the 13 regions studied,standing in sharp contrast to core-dominated areas like Chicago andNew York, where Edgeless office spacemakes up less than 30 percent of thearea total. (See Table 5.) No otherregion—even those with relatively dis-persed patterns of officedevelopment—comes close to the per-centage of office space South Floridamaintains in its Edgeless Cities.

The good news is that the tide inSouth Florida may be shifting some-what. While Edgeless Cities continueto dominate South Florida’s officemarket, they lost some ground in the1990s to South Florida’s two EdgeCities at the Miami Airport and BocaRaton, and to Fort Lauderdale’srecently revitalized downtown. (See

Table 4.) This indicates that Miamimay have reached its limits of edge-lessness, and that as the region shiftsfrom greenfield to infill development,bigger centers are finally emerging.

V. Policy Implications ofOffice Sprawl in SouthFlorida

So what does all this office datamean for public policymakersin South Florida? The policyrelevance of these findings is so

broad that a full exploration lies beyondthe scope of this report. However, anumber of general ramifications associ-ated with the dominance of theEdgeless City pattern of office growthin South Florida cannot be ignored.The list below hardly exhausts the pos-sible impacts of Edgeless Cities, but itdoes include many of the major issuesthat have been at the center of SouthFlorida’s public policy debate oversprawl.16

Environmental/Land Use There is a possible link between Edge-less City expansion and lower densitydevelopment or urban sprawl—espe-cially in Eastern-U.S. metropolitanareas.17 To the extent urban spacesprawls into habitat areas, it increasesthe scale of environmental impact. InSouth Florida edgeless expansion hasresulted in the loss of thousands ofacres of Everglades. South Floridafaces water quality issues as the resultof the loss.18 On the positive side, thisedgeless expansion finally has reachedan edge that was mandated by the fed-eral government.

Public TransportationWhen it comes to public transit oppor-tunities, Edgeless Cities fall far shortof even Edge Cities. One can imaginethat a dense, maturing Edge Citycould be well integrated into a bus oreven light rail transit system. And theyhave been in certain cases.19 But Edge-less Cities provide no such prospect.

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series8 CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY

Table 5. Typology of Metropolitan Areas, Core versus Edgeless Office Space, 1999

% Office Space % Office Space % Difference Betweenin Primary in Secondary % Office Space % Office Space Primary Downtowns

Metropolitan Area Downtown Downtown in Edge Cities in Edgeless Cities and Edgeless CitiesCore Dominated

Chicago 53.9 19.5 26.6 27.3New York 56.7 7.2 6.2 29.9 26.8

BalancedBoston 37.4 4.6 18.8 39.2 -1.8Washington 28.6 12.5 27.1 31.8 -3.2Denver 30.4 4.2 29.4 35.9 -5.5Los Angeles 29.8 7.8 25.4 37.0 -7.2San Francisco 33.9 8.8 13.9 43.4 -9.5

DispersedDallas 20.5 4.5 40.3 34.6 -14.1Houson 23.0 37.9 39.1 -16.1Atlanta 23.6 9.9 25.3 41.2 -17.6Detroit 21.3 39.5 39.2 -17.9

EdgelessPhiladelphia 34.2 3.2 8.9 53.6 -19.4South Florida 13.1 4.5 16.6 65.8 -52.7

Source: Black’s Guide

As the percentage of regional officespace located in Edgeless Cities rises,the percentage of people that cancommute by mass transit drops. Onecould argue that while some publictransportation systems exist in SouthFlorida, they have little benefit to mostSouth Floridians who commute fromone suburb to another. Operating pub-lic transportation between suburbs istoo inefficient and costly. Even “para-transit” service to most of these placesis at best difficult.

Private TransportationAs the percentage of regional office

space in Edgeless Cities expands,reliance on automobiles for work com-mutes grows, as does commutingdistance. As edgeless office spacegrows, vehicle miles traveled (VMT)increase.20 In a study done by the Sur-face Transportation Policy Project in2000, South Florida ranked fourth inthe nation among the regions with thelargest percentage (19 percent) ofhousehold income spent on trans-portation.21 However, there are thosewho argue that, while office sprawlmay add to commuting lengths, itreduces congestion, increases speedsand thereby little alters commutingtime.22 Edgeless City expansion mayalso lessen some of the congestionproblems around big Edge Cities.23

Jobs/Housing BalanceThe jobs/housing balance may actuallyimprove in many suburbs as EdgelessCities growth diffuses offices deeperinto residential areas. The data in thisstudy shows that office space is in factwidely distributed throughout SouthFlorida. But that may not translate intosignificant reductions of commutingd i s t a n c e s .24 The paradox results fromthe fact that the local Edgeless Citybuilding may not be the destination fora particular commuter. Given thatEdgeless Cities are not concentratedemployment centers or “destinations,”it is doubtful that the people livingnear them actually work there.

Public CostsOffice development has costs as wellas benefits. Given that Edgeless Citiesare by their very nature centerless, thecosts in roads and other infrastructuremay be higher than if such develop-ment were concentrated.25 Thesehigher costs are often borne at all lev-els of government. Many localitieshesitate to charge impact fees to officedevelopments because they are such ahigh ratable. However, some regions,such as the Bay Area, where jobgrowth has far outpaced housingdevelopment, are more resistant tonew office development.26 Florida, astate with no income tax, relies heavilyon local taxes. Additionally, unlike SanFrancisco, South Florida has beenadding houses and jobs in more equalproportion and hence has less incen-tive to resist new office development.

Fiscal EquityBecause most Edgeless City growthoccurs outside central cities, it pullsresources from the regional core.Research has shown that the metro-politan periphery has received farmore investment than the center andthe inner ring of suburbs.27 The entireregion pays the public subsidies thatare required for Edgeless city infra-structure and road building projects. IfEdgeless Cities capture a growingshare of a region’s office development,they may add to existing regionalinequalities with regard to publicinfrastructure expenditures. In thecase of South Florida, this would seethe west draw resources away from theeast as it develops.

Fiscal CapacityBecause Edgeless Cities distributeoffice space so widely, they may helpsome suburban municipal budgets byadding valuable ratables to the taxbase. Office development, especiallyhigh-tech research parks, enhances fis-cal capacity. If Edgeless Cities are builtin less affluent municipalities thanEdge Cities, their presence may even

improve the distribution of the tax baseacross a region (even though they mayalso increase traffic some and requireadditional infrastructure). Even so,though, regional revenue sharingwould likely prove a better method ofdistributing tax resources amongmunicipalities than having office devel-opment sprawl. According to MyronO r f i e l d ’s analysis, much of BrowardCounty lost fiscal capacity as measuredon a per capita basis from 1993 to1 9 9 8 .2 8 This is because populationgrowth outpaced new ratables. Theexpansion of Edgeless Cities in suchplaces could improve this capacity.

VI. Conclusion

This analysis shows that SouthFlorida is perhaps the mostcenterless large office marketin the U.S.29 Like much of the

Sunbelt, South Florida’s downtowncenters have never been as big ordense as Northeast and Midwestdowntowns. At the same time, SouthFlorida has developed few of the large-scale suburban office centers, or EdgeCities, commonly found in other Sun-belt regions such as Atlanta, Houston,and Dallas. Put it together, and thiscombination of modest downtownsand small dispersed suburban centersmakes South Florida the nation’sleader in office sprawl.

At the moment, to be sure, SouthFlorida is in flux. It does not appearthat the volume of office space inSouth Florida’s Edgeless Cities isgrowing. Perhaps South Florida hasreached some outer limit of officesprawl, and some coalescence of newdevelopment is occurring in its cen-ters. But while the pace of thisedgeless growth may be abating, it isclear that leaders in South Floridaneed to understand the developmentpatterns of the past 20 years, andanticipate where growth will occur inthe future. Only by doing so will theybe prepared to respond to the manypolicy challenges these trends portend.

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 9CE N T E R O N UR B A N A N D ME T R O P O L I TA N PO L I C Y

Appendix. Measuring andMapping Office Data

Sources of Office Data Government agencies do not collectoffice market statistics. Instead, a vari-ety of real estate brokers, consultingfirms, realty and building associations,and office guide publishers gather thisdata. Given the diversity of sources,with correspondingly varied foci andinterests, no uniform guidelines existfor determining even basic attributesof office markets such as total size. Infact, there is not even a general agree-ment as to what should be categorizedas an office building. Therefore, anycompilation of office statistics must toan extent be customized and dataselected on the basis of relevance tothe task at hand.

The major source for office data inthis study is Black’s Guide, an impor-tant reference in the commercial realestate industry published in Gaithers-burg, MD. Data from Cushman andWakefield, a national commercial real-tor, was also used.

Black’s Guide Office DataBlack’s Guide lists multi-tenantedrental office buildings of 15,000square feet or more that are identifiedas either existing, under construction,or proposed. Inventory data, by whichtotal market size is determined,includes buildings under constructionat the time of the survey but not thoseproposed, even if a starting date isgiven. B l a c k ’s Guide surveys even thesmallest suburban office markets, mak-ing it possible to compare data acrossregions. Buildings are listed in the pub-lication at no cost to owners ordevelopers, and the guide is distributedfree to companies and institutionsinvolved in the office-leasing process.B l a c k ’s Guide’s primary source of rev-enue is display advertising.

Cushman and Wakefield Office DataCushman and Wakefield’s survey ofoffice buildings is based on a two-tiermarket categorization. A distinction ismade between Class A space, or theprimary market, and Class B offices,the secondary market. Class A build-ings generally have 200,000 or morerentable square feet, are professionallymanaged, have prime locations, arefinished with superior materials (suchas marble in lobbies), and commandhigher rents. Class B offices are of anysize, even as small as 15,000 squarefeet. Further, they are not located inprime areas and have moderate rents.Cushman and Wakefield does surveyboth A and B space, however itsresearch is geared toward the higherend of the market and thus A space isover represented in its reports.

Like Black’s Guide, Cushman andWakefield also surveys only multi-ten-anted offices. Inventory calculationsadditionally exclude owner-occupiedbuildings, government and medicalfacilities, and proposed projects.Buildings under construction areincluded if they have a certificate ofoccupancy as of November 15 of theyear they are reported.

Black’s Guide and Cushman andWakefield’s survey of rental officesboth include, in addition, occupiedproperties that are also partially leasedout to other companies. In suchinstances, the entire building, not justthe leased portion, factors into theinventory of rental-office space.

Limits of Office DataWhile office data is an important indi-cator of metropolitan change, itcannot convey the whole picture. Theoffices documented in the study areleased, multi-tenanted buildings thatexclude such other major employmentfacilities as government offices, ware-houses, flex space (offices combinedwith light manufacturing), hospitalsand universities. That means thisstudy reports on only a portion of thewhite-collar employment (albeit a sig-

nificant share) in 13 of the nation’slargest metropolitan areas. While retailspace is not specifically tracked, thepresence or absence of large regionalmalls amid office development wasnoted.

Also missing from the study weresmall office buildings, such as thoseoccupied by local professionals (e.g.,dentists and tax preparers). Theseservices have long been dispersedbecause they fill local needs and thusfollowed people to the suburbs. Thisstudy instead zeros in on the type ofoffice buildings that used to be almostexclusively found in large commercialcenters and housed businesses such asadvertising and financial servicesfirms.

Had all local businesses beenincluded in this analysis, the regionwould have appeared so radicallydecentralized that the region’s extremejob sprawl would have obscured therecent shift of higher-order economicactivity from the center to the edge.

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Endnotes1. Robert Lang directs the Metropolitan Insti-

tute at Virginia Polytechnic Institute andState University. He is the author of Edge-less Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropolis(Brookings Institution Press).

2. Robert Lang, “Office Sprawl: The EvolvingGeography of Business” (Washington:Brookings Institution, 2000).

3. Christopher B. Leinberger and CharlesLockwood, “How Business is ReshapingAmerica,” The Atlantic 258(10)(1986):43–52. See also Robert Lang, “OfficeSprawl: The Evolving Geography of Busi-ness.”

4. Robert Cervero, “Unlocking SuburbanGridlock,” Journal of the American Plan-ning Association 52(4)(1986): 389–406.See also John Kain, “The Spatial MismatchHypothesis: Three Decades Later,” Hous-ing Policy Debate 3(2)(1991): 371–459.

5. Richard D. Bingham. et al., Beyond EdgeCities (New York: Garland, 1997). See alsoChengri Ding and Richard D. Bingham.“Beyond Edge Cities: Job Decentralizationand Urban Sprawl,” Urban Affairs Review35(6)(2000): 837–855.

6. Robert Cervero. “Jobs-Housing BalanceRevisited,” Journal of the American Plan-ning Association 62(4)(1996): 492–511.See also Robert Cervero, America’s Subur-ban Center: The Land Use TransportationLink (Boston: Unwin, 1989).

7. In fact, analysis of “World City” connectiv-ity in financial flows finds that SouthFlorida is more connected with LatinAmerica than with the rest of the UnitedStates. The region is also the main linkbetween financial centers in Latin Americaand the rest of the world. See EdwardBrown, George Catelano, and Peter J. Tay-lor, “Beyond World Cities: Central Americain a Global Space of Flows,” Area34(2)(2002): 139–148.

8. See Wilbur Zelinsky. The Cultural Geogra-phy of the United States (Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973).

9. This analysis is based on ConsolidatedMetropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSAs),except for Washington—which includesonly the PMSA—and South Florida, whichincludes the CMSA of Miami-Fort Laud-erdale, plus the MSA of Palm BeachCounty. For more details on the data andmethods used in this study, see Robert E.Lang, Edgeless Cities: Exploring the ElusiveMetropolis (Washington: Brookings Institu-tion Press, 2003).

10. Ibid.

11. Cushman and Wakefield does not reporton Broward and Palm Beach Counties,thus analysis of this data focuses only onMiami-Dade County.

12. Robert M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Riseand Fall, 1880–1950 (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 2001).

13. Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the NewFrontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991).

14. Lang, “Office Sprawl.” See also, Lang,Edgeless Cities.

15. Lang, Edgeless Cities.

16. Robert Burchell and others, The Costs ofSprawl—Revisited (Washington: NationalAcademy Press, 1998). See also ReidEwing, “Characteristics, Causes andEffects of Sprawl: A Literature Review,”Environmental and Urban Issues (Winter)(1994): 1–15.

17. Lang, Edgeless Cities.

18. Robert E. Lang, “Open Spaces, BoundedPlace: Does the West’s Arid EnvironmentYield Dense Metropolitan Growth?” Hous-ing Policy Debate 13(4)(2002).

19. L.D. Frank and Gary Pivo, “The Relation-ship Between Land Use and TravelBehavior in the Puget Sound Region” WA-RD351.1 (Olympia, WA: Washington StateDepartment of Transportation, 1994).

20. Cervero, America’s Suburban Center. Seealso Cervero, “Unlocking Suburban Grid-lock.”

21. Barbara MaCann, “Driven to Spend:Sprawl and Household TransportationExpenses” (Washington, D.C.: SurfaceTransportation Policy Project and Centerfor Neighborhood Technology, 2002).

22. Peter Gorden and Harry Richardson, “Con-gestion Trends in Metropolitan Areas.” InCurbing Gridlock: Peaking Period Fees toRelieve Traffic Congestion (Washington:National Academy Press, 1994).

23. Randall Crane, “Cars and Drivers in theNew Suburb: Linking Access to Travel inNeo-Traditional Planning,” Journal ofAmerican Planning Association 62(1)(1996): 51–65.

24. Cervero, “Jobs-Housing Balance Revis-ited.” See also Robert Cervero and RobertGorham, “Commuting in Transit versusAutomobile Neighborhoods,” Journal of theAmerican Planning Association61(2)(1995): 210–225.

25. Robert W. Burchell, South Carolina Infra-structure Study: Projections of StatewideInfrastructure Costs 1995–2015 (NewBrunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Centerfor Urban Policy Research, 1997).

26. Patrick A. McGovern, “Contra CostaCounty Edge Cities: The Political Econ-omy of Planning.” Ph.D. dissertation,University of California, Berkeley, 1994.

27. Myron Orfield, Metropolitics: A RegionalAgenda for Community and Stability(Washington: Brookings Institution Press,1997).

28. Myron Orfield, American Metropolitics(Washington: Brookings Institution Press,2002).

29. Lang, Edgeless Cities. See also Lang“Office Sprawl.”

March 2003 • The Brookings Institution • Survey Series 1 1CE N T E R O N UR B A N A N D ME T R O P O L I TA N PO L I C Y

For More Information:

Robert LangDirector, Metropolitan InstituteVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityPhone: (703) 535-8325rlang@vt.edu

Acknowledgments:

The author is grateful for the advice of Jennifer Vey and Rob Puentes of theBrookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. He wouldalso like to thank Jared Lang for help with the data.

The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy wouldlike to thank the MacArthur Foundations for its support of this project.Brookings would also like to thank the Fannie Mae Foundation for itsfounding support of the urban center and its work.

The Brookings Institution

1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW • Washington D.C. 20036-2188Tel: 202-797-6000 • Fax: 202-797-6004

www.brookings.edu

Direct: 202-797-6139 • Fax/direct: 202-797-2965