Is North Texas an Aerotropolis?
Aerotropolis may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie or it could be the name of a strange metal band, but aerotropolis is a real thing. It will alone add $31.6 billion to the North Texas economy. That is a lot of dough! This aerotropolis is the foundation of a thriving North Texas economy. By aerotropolis, we’re referring to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Officials describe the airport as an aerotropolis, as it is always packed with passengers and freight. It is never not busy and resembles more of a city than your traditional airport. In fact, it is larger and more bustling than some cities even! However, the term aerotropolis runs deeper than that. You see, as pointed out by Dallasnews.com in this article, “The concept [aerotropolis] involves development on airport sites and for dozens of miles beyond the airport fence, with cities, industries, distribution sites, suburbs and cultural complexes orbiting a core international airport.”
So, take an airport, preferably an international one, and surround it with development for miles and miles. At first, it seems like a simple concept, but when you think about the airports you’ve been to, have used, how many of them were the central hub of a city? Or how many were in the middle of such startling development that you forgot you were even at an airport? Chances are not many. It is a very archaic notion that should change. Every airport should be an aerotropolis. That’s what John Karsarda, director of the Center for Air Commerce, thinks, who coined the word.
Karsarda sees an airport as a router in the physical Internet that is today’s world. After all, they connect people and places, keeping the flow of traffic healthy. Due to the amount of people and cargo flying through skies above America and the world, an airport should function more like an aerotropolis. The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport ranks 35th in the world as a cargo mover! That’s a lot of cargo, which is why the airport is transforming into an aerotropolis before our very eyes.
At Crown Exteriors, we enjoy seeing the growth of North Texas!