Either way, the action is not in the center of the city.
To Fly or to WalkOp-Ed Columnist
To Fly or to Walk
By ROGER COHEN
Published: May 16, 2011
LONDON — At a dinner the other night an urban designer, Christopher Choa, was telling me about a project he’s involved in to build an “aerotropolis” next to Cairo airport. It appears the aerotropolis — with production lines leading right into the belly of planes — is the next big thing. ... The aerotropolis is “glocal,” a place that draws on local competitive advantages (like cheap labor) even as it plugs into the planetary I-want-it-now faubourg. It is part of the universe dubbed “Airworld” by John Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s business school, who also coined the phrase “the physical Internet” to describe the networks that ensure iPhones and winter cherries are always a click away.
....
Kasarda and his amanuensis, Greg Lindsay, have produced a book called “Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next” that sets out a hectic vision for the soon-to-be nine billion inhabitants of a small planet. As electronic connectivity demands its mirror image — the physical connectedness of human beings scrambling to keep pace with digital algorithms — the growth will be spurred that keeps us whole.
Already, Kasarda and Lindsay write, the numbers are compelling. While world G.D.P. rose 154 percent between 1975 and 2005, world trade grew 355 percent. “Meanwhile, the value of air cargo climbed an astonishing 1,395 percent. More than a third of all the goods traded in the world, some $3 trillion worth — but barely one percent of its weight! — travels via air freight.”
Those numbers provide a useful image of a post-industrial world where air-freighted Chinese-made iPads, Ivory Coast sea bass and French foie gras satisfy the needs of the wealthy for instant gratification while those bound to defer gratification — like jobless workers of a de-industrializing middle America — scramble to get in the fast-lane to aerotropolis.
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