‘Airport city’ or VIP urbanism? Questioning the market-led development strategies of airport firms.

Keywords: airport city, inequalities, property development, press coverage
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 44

Abstract

Airport management companies increasingly shape urban spaces through their property development: hotels, business parks, conference centers, etc., often referred to by the ‘airport city’ umbrella term. This paper questions these developments strategies, which contribute to the diversification and financialization of these compagnies’ activities. It draws on a case study regarding Paris city-region, marked by acute land scarcity and issues of housing affordability, and Aéroports de Paris (ADP). Owning and managing Paris city-region’s airports, ADP is one of the region’s largest landowners. The research investigates the urban model promoted by ADP’s development strategies, analyzing media reports from 1990 to 2019 and interviews carried out with stakeholders. It shows that this development tends to operate an elite capture of land use planning, prioritizing the implementation of services designed for wealthy consumers by large companies and neglecting existing alternative uses, especially for accommodation purposes. Capitalizing on the exceptional urbanism attached to airport land and in the name of airport competitiveness and territorial development, a VIP ‘airport city’ model of urbanism is mobilized in ADP’s real estate activities. Notably because of its top-down nature, this VIP urbanism generates tensions with local stakeholders. However, the press coverage tends to minimize them and normalize this urbanism by providing an uncritical, fragmented and eventialized framing of each project. This airport VIP urbanization turns out to be a case in point of the emergence of a post-political city as well as of the strength of growth coalitions regarding infrastructure-led development.