The Airport City Phenomenon: Evidence from Large US Airports

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.

Flying high (in the competitive sky): Conceptualizing the role of airports in global city-regions through “aero-regionalism”

“…Against this backdrop, an influential policy consensus -employed to varying degrees (and with varying degrees of effectiveness) from Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Phoenix to Cairo, Singapore and Belo Horizonte -has crystallized around the growth potential of the ''airport city'' or ''aerotropolis'' (Appold and Kasarda, 2013;Blanton, 2004;Güller and Güller 2003;Kasarda, 1995;Kasarda and Sullivan, 2006). Cities are advised to embrace their airports by developing advanced, modally integrated facilities that can maximize locational advantages for New Economy industries ''with the ultimate aim of bolstering the city's competiveness, job creation, and quality of life'' (Kasarda and Lindsay, 2011, p. 174).…”

Planners Take Flight

“…There is, however, debate in the literature regarding the localized economic benefits of such airport area planning. While Appold and Kasarda (2012) find the concentration of employment around airports to be significantly higher and argue that airports generate secondary employment nodes in metropolitan areas, Cidell (2014) finds that airports are not necessarily stronger generators of economic development compared to other major municipal infrastructures.…”

Viewpoint: The aerotropolis: Urban sustainability perspectives from the regional city

“…At first glance, the twenty-first century airport city conceptually recalls the early twentieth-century monocentric, concentric-zone model of urban growth (Burgess 1923). However, upon empirical scrutiny, a polycentric metropolitan region is observed (Appold and Kasarda 2013;see also Hall 2001). The monocentric city is the "basic model of urban form" as Appold and Kasarda (2013) aptly remind, however, the city that is diagrammed schematically and verified empirically has features, like "edge city," that connote the polycentric urban form beyond the "basic model."…”

“…However, upon empirical scrutiny, a polycentric metropolitan region is observed (Appold and Kasarda 2013;see also Hall 2001). The monocentric city is the "basic model of urban form" as Appold and Kasarda (2013) aptly remind, however, the city that is diagrammed schematically and verified empirically has features, like "edge city," that connote the polycentric urban form beyond the "basic model." Compared to the twentieth-century city, in which economic and social vitality is concentrated in a central business district (CBD), the airportcity district as a whole determines a vital function that is not confined to the city center.…”