John D. Kasarda is co-author of the new book Aerotropolis, an astonishing treatise on the metropolis of the future and the integral role of the airport. Kasarda argues "Look for yesterday's busiest train terminals and you will find today's great urban centers. Look for today's biggest airports and you will find the great urban centers of tomorrow." In his career he has consulted with four White House administrations and advised companies such as Boeing, FedEx and Bank of America. He is professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. For a rare moment when he is not in the air, Atlantis asks him about the future of the airport, the city and the implications for the Netherlands.

Airports are evolving from simple infrastructure providers to complex multiproduct, multiservice enterprises wherein consumption of one product cross-subsidizes the provision of others. Nowhere is this better seen than in the airport cities which are evolving around many mid and large sized airports. Rather than separate portfolio businesses which can smooth or augment airport revenue, these developments raise the prospect that airports are platforms for two-sided markets.

Social scientists view airports as quintessential "non-places". "Places" communicate identity, social meaning, and history while "non-places", lacking these attributes, are held to be anonymous, disorienting and off-putting.

Central America has lagged behind other regions of the world in airport city and aerotropolis development. This is about to change.

Indianapolis International Airport (IND), handling a total of 7.5 million passengers and 1.05 million metric tons of cargo in 2010, received much more than a facelift in 2008. A new state-of-the-art airport was opened adjacent to the old one on a greenfield site a mile wide and over two miles in length.

The crown has been passed from Memphis to Hong Kong. Memphis, which had been the leading cargo airport every year since 1992, handled 3.9 million metric tons of cargo in 2010. Hong Kong processed 4.1 million metric tons last year – an increase of 23 percent over the previous year.

Cities flourished as seaports. Towns sprouted around rivers. Railroads opened the hinterlands, and highways connected suburbs. Now, the fastest-growing cities in the world are airport cities. Beijing and Dubai and Brisbane have already started listening to a UNC business professor named Jack Kasarda, who says that our nation's future is up in the air.

Once a place strictly for airplanes to take off and land, the modern airport has become something much more significant for any company, or region contemplating its economic future.

The first three chapters from the Global Airport Cities book are provided. These chapters include (1) The Way Forward, (2) Strategically Managing Airport Cities, and (3) Airport City Pioneers. Key components of airport cities and aerotropolises are described as well as strategic management issues.

We maintain that the economic benefit of aviation is incorrectly measured; the net gains from aviation-enabled trade are the proper measure. These benefits are more easily visible in selected non-core urban regions than in the largest world cities.

John D Kasarda has researched this development around the world, he has seen how airports are evolving from transportation and supply chain-focused areas into mixed-use commercial centers * press the next arrow at the end of p.1 for continuation of article

Aviators attain flight and control the movements of their aircraft by precisely balancing the forces of lift, thrust, drag and gravity. The people piloting the aerotropolis initiative – the promotion of Memphis’ economy focused on the airport, other transportation assets and the connectivity among them — are negotiating their own set of physics in hopes of becoming airborne.