Coming next to you - - the Aerotropolis

Four out of five Americans call home either downtown or suburbia.  This is fairly typical for the developed world.  Home for the developing world is still the farm or a more rural setting.  For example, India has only 29% of its citizens in urban environments.  This is changing - - and changing rapidly.  As I have previously discussed - - India must build a new Chicago (some numbers are hard for the human brain to imagine) every year to absorb the migration of rural dwellers into cites (they come for many reasons - - but an opportunity to have a better life is chief among them).  The number of people that call a city home will nearly double by 2050 to more than six billion people,  At the same time, the size of a cities geographic look is expected to more than double.

The bulk of these cities will have the classic urban elements that will remind us all of New York, London, and Los Angeles.  Some portion of these new cities will have elements that can truly be called new.  Newness will be found in those cities that we call the Aerotropolis - - urban developments based on airport hubs.  Those key locations that mark the point of criticality, where people and goods seem to come together.  This coming together is important - - just look at the volume that hooks up at certain points on the planet:

• 2.4 billion air travelers in 2010
• 3.3 billion projected air travelers in 2014
• 9.4% projected average annual growth in international passenger demand in North American, 2010-2014
• 31 million metric tons of international cargo traffic in 2010
• 38 million projected metric tons of international cargo traffic in 2014

The opportunities for the Aerotropolis are dynamic and far-reaching - - fast, efficient, world-class architecture - - all built from scratch.  New ideas, from a commitment to sustainability to free trade zones will embrace the Aerotropolis.  Imagine a "Medical Aerotropolis" in India - - part resort, part world-class medial facilities, part airport - - fly in from Phoenix for your hip replacement at rock-bottom prices.  You end up disrupting the local medical incumbents and monopolies in the Phoenix area using the long arm of air travel.  The world starts to become truly flat.

Look to China to lead the way - - money, opportunity, and vision in the context of the Aerotroplis.  Like the city of Chongqing - - a strategic Aerotropolis with a focus on laptops.  A hub for the HPs and Apples of the world meeting at the one point on the planet where maybe 50% of all the laptops are manufactured.  The one point where the flow of ideas and the flow of goods meet - - meet at a place of strategic vision and dreams mixed by combinations of  the public, the private, the new, the green, the competitive.

Check out "Aerotropolis:The Way We'll Live Next" by Greg Linday and John Lasarda.