A Short Primer on Aerotropolis and Airport City Planning

The primer suggests a re-orienting of aerotropolis planning from airport-centered to region and economy-wide-centered, from a focus on facilities to a focus on fundamentals, and from a concern with building to a concern for increasing welfare. Accordingly, the primer discusses 1) the role of aviation and the aerotropolis in facilitating trade, 2) the distribution of employment concentration in metropolitan regions, and 3) the design needs of the built environment. Because aviation makes a claim on scarce off-airport land area through noise and safety concerns and because the aviation-enabled employment which is advantaged by proximity to an airport requires only a small minority of the affected space, a search for synergies among uses is recommended.