Creating Places: The role of airports in regional growth

Airports bring connectivity, for individuals, communities and businesses. Connectivity is a key enabler of physical, economic and reputational growth, and is a significant factor in the development – and sometimes even establishment – of places.

If they build it, people will come

On a very basic level, airports bring people to a region, where they will spend money and contribute to the economic growth of that area. In many cases, the very existence of the airport is why tourism in that place is possible.

If we look to countries like Saudi Arabia, that are in the process of establishing themselves as holiday destinations, we’re seeing new tourist focused airports being built, such as Red Sea International Airport (RSI) that was designed specifically to serve a huge tourism project in the area, and that prides itself on ‘opening Saudi Arabia up to the world’. By bringing tourists into a previously undeveloped and relatively inaccessible desert region, the airport is doing just that.

Airports enable economic growth, but in locations such as this, they have the potential to go even further. By establishing a new network of infrastructure, and bringing investment (and development) to an area, businesses, homes and communities will emerge. Soon enough, a place has been created, that may not otherwise have existed.

Half way across the world, in Hounslow, West London, it’s not tourists that have come to the region, but workers. A very large proportion of its residents are employed at Heathrow Airport, or have some direct link with it. Prior to the building of Heathrow, Hounslow was mainly agricultural land, but it is now an established urban centre, precisely because of the airport. All along the M4 corridor – a motorway built primarily to connect Heathrow – people commute to the airport for work, and there has been a growth in towns along the route, such as Slough and Maidenhead, as a result.

An airport can clearly have far-reaching implications for the wider region. Communities thrive – and even sometimes exist – because of an airport, and their growth is inextricably linked to the growth of the airport.

Business is booming

Businesses sprout up around airports – to serve the airport, but also because of the connectivity and access to other markets the airport provides. This causes a ripple effect, and the bigger and more successful an airport, generally, the bigger and more successful the surrounding region becomes.

Specialist industries can initially be drawn to sites near airports if they require quick transportation of goods, such as pharmaceuticals or perishable goods, or because of the speed to market they can provide. Once these businesses establish themselves, a degree of momentum is built, and businesses become interdependent.

There comes a time when these businesses hit a critical mass and begin to foster their own organic growth, increasing demand on the airport. To meet this demand, further expansion of the airport is then necessary. This is a major turning point for the airport, as its role in regional growth flips from enabler to server.

Growing together

The moral and environmental implications of the perpetual growth of airports is point for debate. If an airport shifts to becoming a server for a community it once established, how can we ensure this relationship is sustainable?

Whether or not an airport can ever become ‘too big’ really depends on the place. With the recent announcement of Gatwick’s second runway development, and plans for other airport expansions afoot, the displacement of people has stoked fiery controversy in the UK. But in a place like Dubai, for example, there’s plenty of largely uninhabited desert land ripe for development, so displacement of people isn’t such an issue.

The world of commerce is transient, and it follows growth wherever it goes. If an airport can no longer support growth, due to planning constraints, for example, businesses could start to look elsewhere – namely to more unpopulated locations where physical growth is much less constrained. This could have significant implications on airports in Europe and the UK particularly, as well as the cities and towns that they have established, grown and sustained.

Essentially, whether propelled by business or tourism, airports have the potential to create places. But they must build resilience into expansion plans in order to maintain the steady and manageable growth of these places.

To strike a balance and promote mutual growth, the role of an airport should go beyond being either an enabler or a server of a community, and instead become part of the community itself. Airports like Singapore Changi and Hong Kong are doing this very successfully, acting as community hubs where residents who are not flying can use the facilities, such as shared work spaces, cafés and ground transport links. By integrating the functions of the airport with the functions of the community, the two can grow together.