to Those Trying to Save Buffalo, Futurist Joel Garreau Says, “Why Bother?”

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- “Give me one good reason for cities to continue to exist!” That’s the challenge issued to those in love with urban space by noted futurist Joel Garreau.

Garreau, Washington Post writer and author of the groundbreaking bestseller, “Edge City: Life on the New Frontier,” will open the 1997-98 lecture series sponsored by the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

Noted for his spirited, witty presentations, he will present an illustrated public talk at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 15, in 105 Harriman Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus. Admission is free of cost.

Garreau is the foremost chronicler of the past 150 years of the North American city and its spawn, the 181-plus “edge cities” outside urban cores where most Americans now live, work, play, worship, attend school, shop, grow up and grow old.

Like it or not -- and he’s got no problem with the change -- Tyson’s Corners, Silicon Valley, Irvine and Amherst, he says, are the cities of today and tomorrow.

Garreau promises to offer a fascinating transcontinental tour spiced by his sharp insight, provocative observations and superb reporting on the positive side of these new centers of economic growth springing up on the borders of our traditional urban areas.

In addition to his work as a writer and reporter, he is a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, a member of the futures consortium called Global Business Network and the president of his own company, The Edge City Group. An enormously popular speaker, Garreau has appeared on more than 1,000 television and radio programs in the past several years and has lectured throughout the United States and Canada.