ABSTRACT
The physical makeup of satellite employment centers offers a logical launching point for framing strategies aimed at safeguarding suburban mobility. Nationally, hundreds of office developers are attempting to design-in features that promote alternatives to solo driving. A characteristic type of non-Central Business District (CBD) office development, found primarily where land tracts are physically restricted, is the speculative, freestanding building. A large share of suburban office structures built during the 1960s and 1970s were single, physically unrelated buildings situated in mixed-use surroundings. The overarching theme of suburban office park designs, of course, has been shaped less by utilitarian principles than by aesthetics. Any movement toward creating "urban villages" versus sprawling office complexes could go a long way toward attenuating the automobile's domineering presence in suburban work settings. Growing rosters of suburban office parks nationwide are being built with some of the special operating needs of mass transportation in mind.
