Chapter 3 - Airport City Pioneers  
By John D Kasarda and Stephen J Appold

The economic opportunities and challenges facing commercial airports haven't changed much since they first began to appear in the 1920s.

Airports, as a vital component of the transportation value chain, provide speedy, long-distance connectivity, which improves business competitiveness and the livelihoods and lives of the residents in the metropolitan region it serves.

However, that same value chain also imposes costs such as aircraft noise and increased traffic congestion while airports consume large quantities of land and are expensive to operate. 

Developing non-aeronautical revenue sources in combination with managing land use have been key means to addressing these issues for decades. While the general approaches may have been relatively constant, specifics of their implementation, orientation and scale have not. 

A host of new airport features and functions have evolved to meet changing facility and commercial demands as the flying public grows and changes, and as new business and leisure processes develop.


Early History

Hotels, restaurants and leisure facilities have been standard features of commercial airport design almost from their beginning when US urban planners frequently toured major European airports seeking models for emulation.

By the mid-1930s, factories ringed select airports - partially for the accessibility advantages, but also in order to tap into the opportunities presented by the dawn of the Air Age.

Architects and planners groped their way towards the economic integration of airports with their cities while taking account of the social, environmental and central business challenges.


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