Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Flying High (In The Competitive Sky): Conceptualizing The Role Of Airports In Global City-Regions Through “Aero-Regionalism”, Jean-Paul Addie

USI Publications

Airports are key catalysts for urban growth and economic development in an era of global urbanization. In addition to their global economic functions, the multiscalar connectivity and localized impacts of air transport infrastructure place them at the heart of city-regional politics and planning. Yet the relations between global air transport, economic development and city-regionalism remain under-theorized. This paper introduces the concept of aero-regionalism to explore the relationality/territoriality dialectic and mechanisms of state territorialization unfurling at the nexus of globalization, air transport, city-regionalism and air transport. I provide a relational geographic comparison of the impact of varying local institutional arrangements and …