The aerotropolis is a metropolitan region centered around an airport where infrastructure and the economy are built around air transportation. Key aspects include aviation-dependent businesses that rely on quick global connectivity provided by air travel, as well as commercial and residential development near the airport. Critics argue the aerotropolis model may not be sustainable if oil becomes more expensive or scarce over time and that it leads to environmental issues like loss of farmland and increased carbon emissions.
The aerotropolis is a metropolitan region centered around an airport where infrastructure and the economy are built around air transportation. Key aspects include aviation-dependent businesses that rely on quick global connectivity provided by air travel, as well as commercial and residential development near the airport. Critics argue the aerotropolis model may not be sustainable if oil becomes more expensive or scarce over time and that it leads to environmental issues like loss of farmland and increased carbon emissions.
The aerotropolis is a metropolitan region centered around an airport where infrastructure and the economy are built around air transportation. Key aspects include aviation-dependent businesses that rely on quick global connectivity provided by air travel, as well as commercial and residential development near the airport. Critics argue the aerotropolis model may not be sustainable if oil becomes more expensive or scarce over time and that it leads to environmental issues like loss of farmland and increased carbon emissions.
Airports have evolved as drivers of business location and urban
development in the 21st century bringing in the concept of an
aerotropolis. An aerotropolis is a metropolitan subregion where the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered on an airport. The engine of the aerotropolis is the airport and its air routes which offer firms speedy connectivity to their distant suppliers, customers, and enterprise partners worldwide. Some aerotropolis businesses are more dependent on distant suppliers or customers halfway around the world than those located nearby. As economies become increasingly globalized and reliant on air commerce for trade in goods and services, the speed and agility aviation provides to long-distance movement of people and goods generate competitive advantages for firms and places. In the aerotropolis model, time and cost of connectivity replace space and distance as the primary metrics shaping development, with "economies of speed" becoming as salient for competitiveness as economies of scale and economies of scope. In this model, it is not how far, but how fast distant firms and places can connect.
The aerotropolis encompasses aviation-dependent businesses and the
commercial facilities that support them and the multitude of air travelers who pass through the airport. Airport-linked businesses include, among others, time-sensitive manufacturing, logistics, and e- commerce fulfillment; high-value perishables and biomeds; retail, sports, and entertainment complexes; hotels; conference, trade, and exhibition centers; and offices for businesspeople who travel frequently by air or engage in global commerce. Clusters of business parks, logistics parks, industrial parks, distribution centers, information technology complexes, land wholesale merchandise marts locate around the airport and along the transportation corridors radiating from them. An increasing numbers of aviation-oriented firms and commercial service providers cluster around airports. The aerotropolis is becoming a major urban destination where air travelers and locals alike work, shop, meet, exchange knowledge, conduct business, eat, sleep, and are entertained often without going more than 15 minutes from the airport. Principles of urban planning and sustainability are essential to the creation of a successful aerotropolis and its sustainability. One major criticism is the question of whether oil will stay relatively inexpensive and widely available in the future or whether a downturn in oil production will adversely affect aerotropolises. Others have criticized the aerotropolis model for overstating the number and types of goods that travel by air. While many types of high-value goods, like electronics, tend to travel by air, larger, bulkier items like cars and grain do not. Other criticisms of the aerotropolis include loss of farmland and forests, excluding affected people and communities, and locking in high-carbon infrastructure for decades to come.