The Trouble with & Potentially Potential (sic) of Airports

When I was a kid I used to love planes, airports, and travelling. Once I finished school and went to work, flying once a week or so for work, the joy quickly vanished into a soul-crushing malaise, sitting in generic airport lounges, waiting in lines through security, putting up with crying babies, and the general insufferability of all people seemingly at their worst, during travel, amplified by the stress compounded by airlines under the weight of their own stress and bureaucracy dealing with failed and failing business models.

And its true that many airlines are struggling with a litiny of factors from labor costs to operations and maintenance costs. Except they won't go anywhere. Save for complete collapse of the global economy, we'll need, want, and demand some form of air travel. Having experienced the comfort and convenience of high speed rail, I suspect airlines will eventually focus solely on longer distance travel and a rebirth of trains will cover the regional linkages, simply because trains are more efficient getting you from place to place without the time delays getting to and from the actual hubs (airport vs rail station).

Rail loses this competitiveness once you start getting over 500 miles or so, given current speeds. I actually did the math once (and I'll have to look it up again) and it shows that Dallas to St. Louis is about the cutoff point where you're better off flying than taking a hypothetical high speed train. Nonetheless, Dallas to Austin or Houston, city center to city center in an hour is pretty tempting. And far more comfortable than a plane. Because trains can be as long as they need to be without losing much efficiency.

I can't sleep on flights anymore. I don't know what happened to this former super power. My flight back from London, despite a bit sick (though not really hungover), turned into an opportunity to catch up on some reading. In this case, Greg Lindsay's Aerotropolis, perhaps inspired by Heathrow itself to scroll through my Kindle for Lindsay's book. Despite my trepidation towards John Kasarda's ideas that all cities will be aerotropoli, I found Lindsay's writing excellently measured, perhaps even approaching the subject matter as carefully as I did reading it.

The idea of the aerotropolis is real. Airports are hubs. Value is created by hubs, be there mere intersections, rail stations, or airports. The challenge, like all global/regional hubs is the infrastructure is as much disruptive as it is connective, particularly to local networks.

However, reading about the Heathrow controversy, its need to expand, and the general loathing by locals and frequent flyers alike towards the airport, I was struck by a singular moment. The dropoff. Heathrow Terminal 3 drop-off is surprisingly welcoming, a plaza lika space formed by the arms of the terminal.

Except that was really the only nice part. Sure, the interiors have been redone to turn the airport into a shopping mall with for-pay wifi stations and the like, but I was most impressed with the drop-off. The real problem is everything surrounding the airport:

And that's when it hit me. The real problem with airports isn't the flight paths. Though, if you've ever golfed at Bear Creek golf course near DFW, you can smell the jet fuel in the morning. Not so pleasant. And a big portion of land value is about emotion, decreasing dissatisfaction and increasing satisfaction be that through social or economic exchange. I suspect airlines will eventually work out the issue of jet fuel, perhaps even sound, because it is in their financial interest long-term to move away from fossil fuels. I don't even mind the sound of jets taking off and landing. It reminds me of being in a city where things are happening. People are coming and going.

And that's when I realized the bigger issue facing the idea of "aerotropolis," or the city built around, by, and service of the airport. As I've written a number of times, regional/global infrastructure has to be tangential to the local fabric and functions of the city, less those connections become disruptive. It isn't the flight paths that prevent the idea of the aerotropolis, and I don't even really like that term, it's really just about land value responding to interconnected networks, ie city, but the ground connections to/from the airport that are far more disruptive:

Outside of DFW has become this basically:

So the real question becomes, how can we maximize the value of an airport to a city via minimizing the disruption it has upon that city and decreasing "dissatisfaction" through the inconvenience of getting to/from the airport to our actual destinations within the city?

So in this sense, any airport has three primary barriers preventing a maximization of its convenience and value to the city:

1. Flight Paths - as we've discussed, this is already minimal.

2. Land Mass / Security:

As you can see in any map of the DFW area, DFW airport is more identifiable from satellite than either downtown FW or Dallas. Larger in area too. The massive land mass limits the amount of value that can cluster near the airport.

Furthermore, the rigid boundary creates a vast perimeter "border vaccuum," in Jane Jacobs' words. What she intuited by this is that the value is at the center of places and centers are impossible at edges of places. Think of downtown Dallas. The value is on Main Street, not along the perimeter of the highway loop:

And,

3. Disruptive nature of the regional connectivity, mostly car access and infrastructure.

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The question becomes, can we limit the effect on city fabric of an airports inevitable appetite for land, decrease the regional infrastructural disconnectivity, while maximizing the convenience of the airport?

Reagan National in DC is one I'm most familiar with that comes close. The airport is built out into the Potomac on new and otherwise worthless land. In other words, nice and flat space, out on what would otherwise be a barrier itself, the river.

The Arlington, VA/Pentagon City area isn't the world's most urban place, but it is steadily improving, be it in isolated bubbles of pseudo-urbanism fragmented by overly wide/fast roads. What other examples are there like this? LaGuardia too, is set out on the water, but isn't connected by rail and is disconnected by highway. Aerotropolis discusses the project in South Korea, New Songdo, where the airport is built off the coast on an island and the "aerotropolis" is a new city from scratch connected via ferry.

It makes sense, being that it is between Seoul and the airport. However, it isn't immediately adjacent. The question remains, can an airport immediately interface with a city, much the way Reagan does in terms of proximity, but better? Can we apply the welcoming plaza of Heathrow T3, except without the rest of Heathrow's spaghetti and parking garages around it?

Something like this:

The regional road/rail connection could even be decked to further minimize the disruption and connection. As for our local airports, Love Field is pretty well landlocked, but small and convenient enough that the city is pretty close to the terminals. Except, it is still a mile away. Hardly adjacent. Also, the new DART line has a stop, but it too is nearly a mile away. We can't really infill between without removing runways.

Would there be value to infilling the oodles of land within DFW proper? Quite possibly. Even with the assortment of new rail lines scheduled to deliver people to the airport, none of which will be more convenient than driving (though less costly given parking costs). DFW suffers by being far away. As airports inherently serve regions, its regional infrastructure is quite bad upon its surroundings. Can we then build closer? Can there be express trains to the airport?

There is also the necessary point that all of the surrounding land uses around airports are fairly undesirable. This is at the heart of my early trepidation towards overvaluing land near airports. It is mostly cheap motels, used car lots, and the like. The areas immediately around airports are about as desirable as around many of the train stations in Europe, ie not the nicest parts of town. Is that because of its nature as a hub? Is it because of the logistical network of global economic exchange? Is it because of that border vaccuum effect? I suspect it is all of the above.

In other words, the efforts to build aerotropoli are pure experiments in speculation. However, it is also equally certain that they could be built far better than they are if they follow the simple rules:

1. Minimize disruption to the physical surroundings

and

2. Maximize convenience getting to and from Gates to micro-destinations within the cities themselves.

The best places are always governed by the simplest and most elegant of rules.

Wednesday Linkages

This will be the last post until next week. I hop a plane to London tomorrow. Until then, you can catch me tonight as part of the Dallas Morning News Future of West Dallas panel at KERA's studios. Or if you can't make that, give a listen to the latest Urbanology podcast, which you can find on iTunes.

Before I get to the linkages, I got the full tour of Thanks-Giving Square yesterday, which was fun and interesting. They do have a worthy purpose and mission, to bring people of all race and creed together. Unfortunately, problematic design inside and outside of the property have combined to diminish the square's stature, utilization, and ultimately its ability to operate as a gathering point for more than smokers (cigarettes by day, crack at night) and doggy doo.

That's right. As we were on tour looking at all the good things within the Square (including its underlying mission), you couldn't help but notice all the ironwork (railings and drain inlets) that had been stolen for whatever meager change could be garnered for them. Enough to get a hit of crack I suppose. The circle of life was evident as the maintenance man Rick, the guy I dubbed Sisyphus for his tireless work shoving slumping liquid rock back up the hill each day, pointed out a crack pipe along our walk.

The lesson is that illicit activity tends to occur in dark places. Shine the light and it scatters. However, I'm using the word light metaphorically, as in human activity. Visual and physical porosity. Thanksgiving square is dark during the day. You can't very well see in and there isn't much reason to go there unless your dog needs to satisfy its bowel movements and you, the office worker, needs to satisfy your nicotine cravings and your building won't let you smoke anymore by the entrance. But it's darker at night.

I'll be writing much more seriously about Thank-Giving Square in the upcoming weeks. This is a place worth saving. At least, its purpose and its place as what used to be a central crossroads of the city if nothing else.

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Three pretty fascinating articles which are thought provoking for various reasons and by themselves weave a narrative of three different cities in three different allegoric places headed in three different directions:

First, Medellin, Colombia. You remember it, right? That's where all the drug kingpins took over in the 80's. It's still a warzone, right?

Huh, investing in public transport and public education. Who'da thunk that would work. Empowering the mobility of its citizenry in two distinct but powerful ways. Sounds like cockamie.

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This is more like it. Baghdad by Starchitect in the 1950's. That'll "save" it. Call up Zaha Hadid.

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Now, far more interesting is this piece by the NYT on Berlin's airports new and old. Really thought provoking stuff on the nature of Berlin, security, and the modern airport experience. The retired urban planner's quotes are particularly poignant at the end.

"...A city surrounded by storks and wolves..." Sounds almost mythical. As if it belongs in Westeros, or something.

The planner told of the need to build bridges to the outside world. And he's right, that is if Berlin wants to "grow." And if that's what they decide politically, more power to them. And this will have consequences. Such as the replacing of the old beloved airport with a new "shopping mall with some planes attached."

Therein lies two modern and divergent issues: one of security and one of experience. The old airport emphasized convenience but was 1/3rd of the determined necessary size. People could go from home to gate in minutes, conveniently. DFW is not unlike this (just further away).

The new airport wants to funnel you through singular security checkpoints. These are awful (ever been through BWI?). They also want you to spend time there ("live, work, shop, play?"). So they build 5-acre shopping malls inside replete with dreadful food courts.

You know where I'd rather shop and eat and play and live and spend time? Either the city I'm leaving or my destination city. I understand the need to make layover time less intolerable, but give us free wifi and we'd sit on hot coals while plugged into colostomy bags if we have to.

I may rant about the need for relocalization, but airports and plane travel isn't going away. Nor would it be a good thing if it did (though it does badly need to reposition itself). But rather than trying to shake every last coin out of the captive market (is that a pat down or are you taking my wallet?), perhaps it would be a more sustainable business model for airlines and cities to get people to their destination cities as quickly and conveniently as possible.

Ahh, yes. But there isn't a business model within the fractured, fragmented, and broken value-extract institutions. There's no room for value-add on this flight.