Despite living only half-an-hour from New York City, my experience with urban space has been defined not only by the bustle of Midtown Manhattan, but also by dynamic edge cities like White Plains NY. Like many people in Southern Westchester County, I have had jobs in both cities, and have experienced both commutes by rail, bus, and car. In my personal life, everything from shopping to sports to date nights are split between White Plains and NYC, and neither city is fully dominant in my day-to-day life. Importantly, as a result of my experiences, I have come to view terms like "center" and "periphery" as rather arbitrary, instead preferring to see the built environment as defined by a network of interconnected urban-suburban nodes.
More recently, my decentralized perspective on urban space has been reinforced by my work for the Westchester County Department of Planning. This is not only because their office is physically located in downtown White Plains, which has allowed me to become more familiar with the city’s fabric, but also because working in regional planning has given me an appreciation for the jurisdictional nightmare that is Westchester County. Like the greater NYC Metropolitan Area, the myriad state and local authorities, community nonprofits, and major corporations form a chaotic network in which political capital is widely distributed. While this does slow institutional reform, it makes policy change relatively effective as nearly all decisions require consensus building. In this way, the political and economic relationships of edge cities like White Plains mirror the physical interconnectedness of the region’s built environment, providing long-term benefits to all involved.
Moreover, White Plains’ urban form has allowed me to experience a great deal of personal freedom as there is a significant amount of potential mobility. More specifically, those living and working in White Plains have access to the region’s overlapping transit networks, providing people with choice in how to exist within the built environment. Not only does this allow me the flexibility to choose where I spend my time and how I travel in between places, but it also increases the city’s productivity as human capital is given a wide range of opportunities.
Ultimately, I believe that urbanists ought to have a greater appreciation for edge cities like White Plains. In order to truly understand how the built environment shapes peoples’ everyday lives, it is important to replace the dichotomy between center and periphery with a more nuanced understanding of urban networks. Thus, with this decentralized lens towards urban form, planners can more effectively implement policy and plan for a wider range of people.
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