Understanding the Airport City - An Analysis and Critique of Airport City Development​

Abstract

​​Cities have always formed around transport hubs, and airports are not exempt from this maxim. The last 20-30 years have seen an exponential increase in the development of urban areas around airports, known as airport cities. These ‘airport cities’ offer an exciting vision of future living. However, there are problems associated with these developments and in the rush to assess the phenomenon, a fundamental questioning of if and how they should exist has been overlooked. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to critically assess how, if at all, airport cities should evolve through understanding and analysing existing airport-centred urban development. An examination of the minutiae of daily life in the airport city alongside strategic analysis offers a fresh approach to airport city research and enables conclusions to be made about the existence and development of airport-centred urban areas. To achieve this, two airport cities have been studied; the Circle at Zurich Airport and Munich Airport City, specifically the LabCampus development. Through in-depth analysis and comparison of the two cases, this thesis found that airport cities can be best understood as extensions of the airport and are primarily ‘cities’ for work – the airport’s unique advantages lending themselves well to this purpose. However, to transform into true ‘cities’, become more sustainable and overcome the challenges of airport-urban integration, a reconsideration of ‘airport cities’ is required. It was concluded that airport cities need to be located in the main passenger flows and be integrated with the transport interchange of the airport to develop a better urban atmosphere, the Munich Airport Centre being highlighted as a good example of this. This, and similar examples, should be further studied as small-scale but high-quality airport-centred urban development that focus on retail, commercial and transport activities seem to offer the most viable and attractive way for airport cities to evolve in the future.​