Aerotropolis

Abstract: As air transport for leisure trips, business travel and goods shipment increased rapidly over the past several decades, the emergence of airport cities has been hypothesised. Busy commercial airports may be emerging as central transport nodes in large metropolitan areas, much as ports and rail terminals were in the past, anchoring employment servicing passengers, facilitating frequent travellers and providing a spatial focus for unrelated firms. An analysis of small-area employment data for the areas surrounding 25 major US airports and the related central cities reveals the concentration of employment within 2.5 miles of these airports to be substantial—approximately half that within 2.5 miles of the central point of the corresponding CBDs—and growing. The analysis refocuses a question about the nature of spatial differentiation within metropolitan regions supporting multiple employment nodes.

Abstract: Airports have been relatively neglected in scholarly planning literature despite their historic role in shaping metropolitan form. Their transformation into major mixed-use urban nodes anchoring subregional realms of aviation-oriented development has underscored their significance as agents of and products of globalization. Reviewing the trends and planning issues arising, several normative models of airport spaces are identified and discussed in relation to sustainable development objectives. The contestation of airport expansion that has made for epic political battles in diverse settings and its implications for models of airport-led urban development is noted. The review is guided by the notion of the sustainable airport region, which ultimately requires a rapprochement between airport master plans and broader urban planning strategies.

Abstract: Airports are no longer places where planes just take off and land but have evolved into major business enterprises with spatial impacts and functional implications that extend deep into metropolitan areas. They are vital hubs in the global space of flows. Airport-led urban development, notwithstanding its employment and income generating capabilities and potentials, comes with costs and risks: economic, environmental, and cultural. A host of planning issues are raised. Traditional NIMBY reactions against airport expansion are evolving into more fundamental critiques of aviation around issues such as climate change. Mediating the conflict between the aviation industry's pro-growth stance and more sceptical perspectives is the concept of sustainable aviation. This may prove an oxymoron but it remains vital to link airport planning to the broader planning of sustainable communities and regions.