Edmonton International Airport moved a step closer to becoming North America's next airport city this week after government officials held a lively areotoroplis symposium to discuss development plans at the gateway.

Ken Woitt, director of planning and development for the City of Leduc, which owns land around the airport, confirmed the city was exploring potential real estate options and that the symposium was the first step in developing ideas.

"There will undoubtedly be development around the airport and we want to do it the best we can," he told the Edmonton Journal.

A keynote speaker at the one-day event was Dr John Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, a leading consultant and academic in the field who created the term 'aerotropolis.'

He said: "An airport is not an airport. You have to understand that. If you think that it is, you're back in the 20th century."

Kasarda argued that rather than allow haphazard growth, airport and government planners need to take the lead in the process early and establish a coherent aerotroplis vision.

By Oliver Clark