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Joel Garreau is the world's foremost chronicler of the biggest revolution in 150 years in how humans build the cities that are the cornerstones, capstones, and, sometimes, the millstones of their civilizations -- the places where most of our new wealth is being created.

This shift toward what Garreau christened "Edge Cities" is a profound revelation of what people genuinely value. Garreau's best selling book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier not only was called "a blockbuster," but The New York Times declared it "the first major book to examine a phenomenon that by any reasonable definition is among the most pressing of our age." Garreau's gift, The Times noted, is his ability to look into the seeming chaos of the future and "clarify trends before they are apparent to the rest of us."

These new Edge Cities -- such as Silicon Valley, Calif., Tysons Corner, Va., Schaumburg, Ill., and Irvine, Calif. -- are home to the headquarters of such world shapers as Microsoft, Motorola, AT&T, Kmart, and Sears. Some of these Edge Cities are now larger than downtown Seattle or Minneapolis. They have become the places around which the majority of all Americans now live, work, and vote. Over 80 percent of all the white-collar jobs created over the last 20 years originated there. Garreau further notes that these new Edge Cities are not simply American creations. They are reliably springing up in urban areas as diverse as London, Paris, Toronto, Seoul, Peking, and Jakarta. They are the great drivers of wealth and jobs worldwide.

For his work on "Edge City," Garreau was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. He has been much in demand from all groups with a stake in these new places: marketers of consumer products and political professionals, financiers (e.g.: Prudential, CB Commercial, J.P. Morgan, pension funds, and Japanese investors); stakeholders in particular Edge Cities (e.g. the Buckhead Coalition, Oregon Metro); and future-oriented professionals (e.g. the American Institute of Architects, Brown University, Michigan State University).
In his spirited speaking presentations, which are illustrated by slides and punctuated by humor, Garreau shares up-to-the-minute research on the world-changing wealth centers. Garreau has appeared on over one thousand television and radio programs, including "Good Morning America", "The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather", "The NBC Nightly News", "ABC World News With Peter Jennings", and "The Larry King Show".

Today, Joel Garreau is a staff writer for The Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, a member of the futures consortium known as Global Business Network, and is president of his own company, The Edge City Group.

Joel Garreau is a staff writer for The Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, a member of the futures consortium known as Global Business Network, and is president of his own company, the Edge City Group. Garreau lives in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge with his wife and two daughters.