The Growth of the Aerotropolis, Or Airport City

"To the jaundiced American eye, such a project might appear to be the terminal metastasis of the sprawl represented by O'Hare, LAX, or JFK. But to dismiss it as the product of Asia's infatuation with all things mega would be to miss the carefully calibrated machinery underneath. It's a machine U.S. companies ignore at their peril at this time of escalating global trade and frictionless competition.

...In the relatively obscure world of urban planning, Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, has made a name for himself over the past decade with his radical (some might say bone-chilling) vision of the future: Rather than banish airports to the edges of cities and then do our best to avoid them, he argues, we should move them to the center and build our cities around them. Kasarda's research has laid bare the invisible plexus of air-cargo networks that have shrunk the globe (much as railroads did for the American West)."

"The aerotropolis represents the logic of globalization made flesh in the form of cities. Whether we consider globalization to be good or simply inevitable, it holds these truths to be self-evident: that customers on the far side of the world may matter more than those next door; that costs must continually be wrung from every process; that greater efficiency is paramount, followed closely by agility; and that distance equals time, which equals friction. To cope with these demands, we've already taken to living much of our lives in the digital world. But for every laptop order that zips to Penang via email, a real 747 must wing its way back with the laptop itself in its hold. If the airport is the mechanism making that possible, everything else--factories, offices, homes, schools--will be built in relation to it. "This is the union of urban planning, airport planning, and business strategy," Kasarda says. "And the whole will be something altogether different than the sum of its parts."

(Includes photos.)

Thanks to reader Debra Varnado for the following article summary:

Later this year, the $4 billion Suvarabhumi International Airport near Bangkok will open in an area formerly called Cobra Swamp. When finished, the facility will be capable of handling 100 million passengers annually. In thirty years, officials expect the surrounding city to be home to 3.3. million people.

According to John Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan -- Flagler Business School, the Suvarabhumi 'aerotropolis' will represent "… the union of urban planning, airport planning, and business strategy... and the whole will be ...different than the sum of its parts."

Writing in July issue of Fast Company, Greg Lindsay explores the aerotropolis -- Kasarda's idea of cities built around international airports, to better position themselves for global trade and competitiveness. As envisioned, Karsardian cities with major highways and multi-modal cargo hubs do not fit the late Jane Jacobs' ideal of human-scale cities; Kasarda forces a radical rethinking of community, sprawl, and urban design.

Lindsay cites the trends toward mega-airports: near Seoul, in Dubai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. "Hong Kong is premising its entire world-trade strategy on the primacy of the airport. Chek Lap Kok already has a mini-city stationed on a nearby island for its 45,000 workers, and SkyCity, a complex of office towers, convention centers, and hotels will soon be visible from its ticket counters." Chek Lap Kok seems to embody Kasarda's aerotropolis: "globalization made flesh in the form of cities."

The development of aerotropolises raises tantalizing issues: Can and will they be accepted in the United States? How will city planning, land use, industry and transport systems evolve in the face of globalization of trade? What will drive the process of urban development -- planning, business, NIMBYism or all of the above?

Lindsay cites Detroit as a potential American aerotropolis. Planners and economic development officials there have conducted preliminary planning to "rethink" development along the Kasardian model, and have crafted "a 'nonbinding memorandum of understanding' for building the aerotropolis. It amounts to a plea to the governor to grant them the cash and the planning powers necessary to bring Detroit and adjoining communities to the table."

And other cities? How are they responding to globalization: "Global GDP, up 154 percent; value of world trade, up 355 percent; and value of air cargo, up 1,395 percent. Today, 40 percent of the total economic value of all goods produced in the world, barely comprising 1 percent of the total weight, is shipped by air (and that goes for more than 50 percent of total U.S. exports, which are valued at $554 billion)."

Lindsay says that "businesses ignore the aerotropolises at their peril."

Thanks to Ashwani Vasishth