San Francisco Bay Area Edge Cities: New Roles for Planners and the General Plan

Abstract

Edge-city development on the urban fringe of U.S. metropolitan centers has provoked heated debate over metropolitan policy. This article reports on qualitative research of two edge cities in the San Francisco Bay Area Walnut Creek and San Ramon investigating the empirical issues of their growth and analyzing the broader issues of metropolitan planning. I specifically examine the roles of California general plan law and local land use planners in the development of the two edge cities, where planners used the general plan as early as the 1950s to set aside areas of each community for economic diversification. This study finds that the California General Plan law failed to provide regional coordination for edge city growth, particularly on issues of transportation, infrastructure, housing, and environmental quality. In addition, it finds public land use planners took a proactive role in maintaining long-term visions, forming relationships with developers and becoming involved in the physical planning of these new urban centers. The larger issues raised by these case studies are the uncoordinated metropolitan impacts of edge-city development under a state-mandated, locally implemented, general plan, along with the shift of public planners from their traditional regulatory role to consensual roles with developers.