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To be fair, some of these airports, especially Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San José airports, were built on what was originally outskirts of the city. Las Vegas was surrounded by desert, and many areas of Phoenix and San José were once vast swathes of farmland. The suburbs would later expand into these areas, and these airports became quickly surrounded by suburban and urban expansion.
@kb_100 blame the taxi unions for that. They cut a monorail half a mile short of connecting to the airport because it would hurt their fares. All hell broke loose when Uber arrived in town too. They've got a stranglehold on any sort of efficient travel so much so that any proposition usually gets shot down immediately.
One has to remember, though, that most airports were built in sparcely developed areas long ago and that the city wrapped around it. This has "buy a cheap house at the end of a runway and complain to the city about the noise" vibes. Even Denver, who packed up Stapleton and moved out into the middle of the plains already has housing at its doorstep less than 30 years later.
DCA (#3 on this list) was never at the edge of any city. Neither was San Diego (#2). DCA is within sight of the Capitol building and San Diego Int’l is right next to Old Town San Diego
@@michaelimbesi2314 San Diego airport was filled in marsh flats where there wasn't any city. The reaches of midway, point Loma were not developed. The airport and the region was an area of industry where they built aircraft at the consolidated plant. San Diego grew around the airport. This whole video is the epitome of looking with envious eyes.
@@michaelimbesi2314DCA is also built partially on reclaimed land. If you look at DCA and the surrounding area Potomac Yard it was nothing but rail yards 50 years ago so there was nothing in the area that matter when it was built. The area built up around it and you could say the same for Bolling AIr Force Base, the Coast Guard HQ and Homeland Security HQ on the other side of the river from DCA so there was never gonna be anything really built there.
@@michaelimbesi2314 "San Diego Int’l is right next to Old Town San Diego" It's very desirable, it makes it very convenient to get there. Most west coast cities are like that.
@@EricTheBlue2010 No excuse! Shoulda been a train station surrounded by rabbit hutches full of deplorables from the very beginning! See my comment above re: aviation history.
As someone from a family that lived in the shadow of La Guardia Airport since before the airport existed-my European ancestors settled in Queens in 1922, and didn't leave our family homes until 2015-I do have to say that it's important to remember that when some of these airports were built, they weren't in city centers. I'm of two minds about whether or not LGA really belongs on this list. LGA opened in 1929 as North Beach Airport (though it did not begin operations as a public airport until 1934), and the Flushing IRT line, the nearest subway route, predates this by 12 years, having been completed in 1917 as far as what is now 103rd St-Corona Plaza station, well beyond LGA. The population of Queens more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, and LGA still wasn't a public airport. The population of Queens is now more than double what it was in the 1930s. LGA was established as a public passenger service airport precisely because the existing airports, EWR and Floyd Bennett Field, were too far out from the city center at the time. Shutting down LGA really just isn't feasible without hundreds of billions of dollars first invested in new high speed rail along the Northeast Corridor, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon, if ever, because of the bias American politicians have against rail and the inevitable NIMBY opposition in a society which is entirely predicated on private ownership of land. There's not going to be a modern-day Robert Moses to make something like that happen. Just look at what's already happened with Chris Christie absurdly burying the ARC project that would have ultimately resulted in long term, permanent windfall gains for New Jersey. This was arguably the most important infrastructure project in the US since the construction of the original Hudson River Tunnels, and his administration's refusal to back the ARC project set us back by more than a decade.
I'd say it's also important to remember that the history of La Guardia is inseparable from the history of seaplanes, particularly the Boeing 314 "Clipper" Flying Boats, the first transatlantic international passenger airliners, since La Guardia is also (and was originially established as) a seaplane airport, and therefore inseparable from the history of commercial passenger aviation, itself.
Only 8 years from when your family moved in to when LGA opened? Something tells me they were well aware of the impending development and jumped on cheap land that was likely touted as "about be be in the shadow of an airport." 😂
The ARC tunnel was buried by Christie, because NY State didn't want to split the cost-overruns cost with NJ. It was all gonna fall on NJ taxpayers. Knowing how often cost overruns happen in any public infrastructure project, that seemed like a no-brainer.
IRT Flushing (7)is a current non-starter. BMT (N/W) Astoria line is the best/only way to hit LGA today. Honestly, I don't even know if it should be on this list. it's a flood plain.
Miami actually started building a new airport way back in the '60s as a replacement for MIA. It was expected that it would be a major hub for supersonic jets, so it was put way out in the middle of the Everglades for noise abatement purposes. The project was cancelled after the first runway was completed. It's still there - a 2-mile long strip of concrete in the middle of the swamp, halfway between Miami and Naples.
While that airport might have made more logistical sense and spurred more public transit development in South Florida, it also would have been catastrophically destructive to the ecosystem of the Everglades. And more development would have undoubtedly sprung up around it, doing even greater damage. Marjory Stoneman Douglas (whose name we know for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately) led the charge in putting the kibosh on that.
Of these airports, Honolulu is most justified. Air travel has no realistic substitutes when you live on an island, and along the shoreline is the only flat place to build a runway.
I personally think LaGuardia should be relocated to Bridgeport's Sikorski Airport. On the New York side, LaGuardia could be rebuilt into a waterfront transit-oriented community with ample park space, and high-capacity metro lines, connecting to downtown Manhattan in 25 minutes. The glitzy new terminal could be repurposed into a transit mall, and the quirky architecture of the former terminals would make for an interesting city center. On the Connecticut side, they could completely scrap the old Sikorski facilities and build a new terminal with two parallel runways. It has room for one 7400ft runway and a 2nd 6000ft runway, which would allow for more operational flexibility than LaGuardia's existing arrangement. The A321XLR's 4700 nautical mile range and shorter runway requirements, makes it possible for an airport of this size to offer flights to most European airports, as well as all of North America, without any loss in fuel efficiency. The new Sikorski airport could also offer a high-speed nonstop air train to Penn Station, utilizing the Acela Corridor to keep the trip just under an hour (a 1.5 mile electrified track extension to the airport would be needed to reach the terminal). The new location would also be a lot more convenient for Connecticut's 3+ million suburbanites who currently have to drive through the densest parts of New York City to fly.
FYI, Boston Logan began life as infilled land that used to be a tidal basin in the 1920s. Eminent domain of East Boston (which also happened to be infilled tidal basin) didn't happen until 1970s to expand Logan's terminal E & plane maintenance facilities. But when Login was first created, it was good use of non-usable land. I would also note that there was strong opposition to the expansion, including by former Boston mayor Kevin White back in the 60s & 70s, and by former Boston mayor Menino, who delayed a further expansion of the 1970's expansion by nearly 30 years, as Massport wanted, back in the 70s to build out Logan even more (only got over ruled in 2003). So it's not like residents & mayors didn't try to prevent the expansion of Logan.
That redevelopment of Stapleton in Denver is F-tier. Mostly single family homes. They added a 2 block strip of stuff that is just single story units and sea of parking lots. Big L. I bet if Stapleton closed today that it would look a lot different with the bigger presence of urbanism around. Edit: Stapleton Airport* for clarification
I’m disappointed with the continued suburbanization of both Stapleton & Lowry, being within city limits. The surrounding neighborhoods are more livable, even as post war subdivisions
Lowry has a good number of townhomes however public transit access is lacking. As someone who lives relatively close to Lowry it is pretty easy to get to by bike as it has a decent bike lane connection from several directions. I do love the reuse of the old airforce hangars as commercial space but the housing and transit could've been better. @@ttopero
The neighborhood was renamed anyway. A lot of people still call it Stapleton but we renamed it for good reason ( though Central Park is a terrible name but the residents who lived there got to vote on it so my opinion doesn't really matter ). Mayor Stapleton was a prominent member of the KKK, it was well past time for his name to be removed from institutions in the city of Denver.
@@legatus_newt The huge golf course just south of Lowry is ridiculous waste of space too, it's bigger than the old Lowry site to boot. That golf course and the one that sits at the L where Havana turns into Hampden over by Cherry Creek Dam both need to go. Aside from that the Dayton triangle and southwest Aurora are primarily condos and townhomes with a few residential hi rises around. Aside from that Lowry, Stapleton, Dayton Triangle, SW Aurora are in the SE Denver transit hole, closest rail line is the comically bad R line over at I-225, so it's bus or drive. Stapleton is at least close~ish to the A line which is the best train in Denver
A cool case study of airport relocation would be Munich. They closed down Munich-Riem Airport in 1992 and moved to Frank Josef Strauss airport, which is way off in the countryside. Granted, the old airport was already towards the end of the built up area at the time. But since the 90’s, Munich has replaced the former airport with a huge housing development, an artificial lake, a park, and in classic German fashion, a gigantic convention center. And the whole area is now served by two subway stops which provide access to the city center in 25 mins or so.
"nd moved to Frank Josef Strauss airport, which is way off in the countryside. " Why would you want to do that? Now you added a couple hours to any air journey. I will concede that Germany is far more dense than the USA, Canada and Australia -- WHICH IS AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY BTW (no one in ancient times said "ok, boys, we can design this city to accommodate cars, or we can design it to accommodate foot and horseback, which shall it be?") so HSR makes a lot more sense there. But from time to time you need to get to the airport....so I don't see the advantage of deliberately moving it away from where people live.
@@neutrino78x It's not so far away that it adds any meaningful amount of travel time if you're already flying. The cities in US were built before cars as well, but they were demolished for the cars.
@@falsemcnuggethope " It's not so far away that it adds any meaningful amount of travel time if you're already flying." That's probably because like with most European cities the airport was already far away from city.....that doesn't really make your case.... "but they were demolished for the cars." Nope, not the major ones. You're thinking of small towns that were in the way of freeways. New York City, for example, was NEVER demolished. And no, the USA can't replace aviation with HSR, the population centers are simply too far apart.
At the same time, many of these airports are much older and were built at the edge of (or outside of) their respective cities at the time. It was the cities sprawling into these areas that led to some of these airports being "in the city". Some EU airports, like Schipol, are pretty close to their city centers but don't have much development around them because the city remains dense. Even Paris Charles de Gaulle is about the same distance to the city center as O'Hare is to the Loop (~15 miles), but Chicago sprawls into ORD while CDG seems distant from the city. So the question should be: is the issue the airports themselves, or is the car-dependent sprawl that led to these airports being surrounded by development? I would argue it's both. But we shouldn't be analyzing these airports in a vacuum either. After all, moving an airport to the edge could lead to further suburban sprawl too. Just see how much development there is around Dulles Airport, especially some of the industry and offices near there.
Nobody would dream of redeveloping most of these airports if even 5 over 1s were the default. "Missing middle" 3 story homes are considered densification in Cambridge, MA. If 5 over 1 apartments were the minimum, Greater Boston would fit the entire population of New England, and still keep Logan Airport.
While this can be a valid question, cities sprawling out is hardly an American problem and airports being in the way is something that can absolutely be addressed. Both Munich and Berlin have closed airports and built new ones further out at some point. Berlin-Tegel is still in progress, Munich-Riem is basically done at this point and it’s an example other cities should take notes from. It’s such a big area, thinking it was nothing but an airport back in the day is kind of difficult to imagine today. And it would have barely made this list, since at 11km from Marienplatz it’s exactly 7mil from the center. It’s not just about airports. Many cities have in recent years redeveloped train goods yards, industrial sites or freight harbors, because having them so close in wasn’t deemed a good use of space. Cities change, just because something is there today doesn’t mean it has to stay there forever.
Also unless you know that your new airport at the edge of town is going to be a major international hub to multiple airlines, the likelihood of connecting that new airport on the edge of the city to the city centre via high quality transit(light rail or better) is pretty small and it's highly likely that people who use the airport on the outskirt of the city will drive to the airport. A lot of cities, even in North America, are connecting their main, close to the city centre airports, with various forms of rail transit. Vancouver Airport Skytrain(Light Metro) Seattle Airport Light Rail(Light Metro) Portland Airport Light Rail Dallas Airport Light Rail to Dallas(Light Metro) and Commuter Rail to Fort Worth San Francisco Airpot BART(Metro system) Miami Airport Metro Rail to Miami City Centre Atlanta Airport Metro to Atlanta City Centre
@@eechauch5522 Berlin is not a great example because Tegal and Schönefeld were built in West and East Germany (respectively), which led to Berlin having two airports after reunification (even though it didn't have the population to support both). The new Brandenburg Airport was built across a runway from Schönefeld. So Berlin didn't really build a whole new airport, just a new terminal at one of the existing airports. And with Munich, looking at the satellite view, most of it was converted to farmland and some offices. Certainly useful, but the planning within Munich and its transit has not led to a sprawling development either.
As others have mentioned, most of these airports were built on the edges of cities and through misguided planning became enveloped by residential growth. In many cases these were Army airfields transferred to the municipalities following the end of WWII. Something else to consider when saying "just move it over here" aside from the costs is terrain id the approach and departure corridors. Just because a runway can be physically located somewhere, even if aligned with the prevailing winds, does not mean terrain will allow approaches and departures under instrument conditions. The flight corridor into and out of an airfield is frequently the determining factor in it's location. This is why airfields are commonly located close to nice flat large bodies of water. Perhaps a better question is why cities have allowed residential growth to encroach on prime airport acreage.
No, a better question is why cities decided to allow so much perfectly good land to be bulldozed for a clearly inferior mode of transportation that treats its customers like shit, pollutes the environment in a whole host of ways, takes up vast areas of land, and only provides a small number of low-wage service jobs in chain restaurants and manual labor. I happen to live next to DCA and frankly, I’d rather live next to a steel mill. Both of them are noisy and pollute the air, but at least the steel mill has a cool industrial vibe and actually meaningfully contributes to the economy.
Had me till the last sentence: "Perhaps a better question is why cities have allowed residential growth to encroach on prime airport acreage." lolwut... like criticizing all of human history of settlement popping up around rivers, ports, rail hubs, highways, etc. Infrastructure for getting people and goods places naturally attracts people interested in having goods, going places, and working in the jobs created to move those people and goods.
@@michaelimbesi2314 "only provides a small number of low-wage service jobs in chain restaurants and manual labor" Wont disagree with the generally low pay, but what an absolutely insane take that you think airports employ a small number of people. Just tossing into Google, the AI response notes on average major airports employ 40,000 people. My local airport (MSP) apparently "supports 86,900 jobs" w/ 21,200 directly tied to airport operation (circa 2017). Having flown into Reagan, definitely a surprising location, but was real nice for a vacation--drove out to Dulles while there for the Air & Space Museum portion there and that was pretty terrible. Lastly: I think you grossly underestimate the hazardous nature of emissions from a steel mill compared to an airport.
Agree 100%. Private pilot here and former Civil Engineering consultant. Even at my arguably low level of flight experience compared to commercial and transport pilots, you learn that there are a myriad of reasons why airports are where they are, and the argument to “just move them over there,” is much more complex from a flight logistics (approach, departure, instrument procedures) AND engineering perspective (i.e. trying to build on swamps in Florida). Before anyone makes a comment about moving infrastructure, they really need to educate themselves on why something is where it is located, and discover that it’s not some haphazard process.
Logan Airport originally was an Air Force base. The Air Force got booted out to Hanscom in Bedford to make way for commercial flights in the 40s. Logan as an airport just had its centennial birthday, it's that old.
Hanscom has also been mentioned as a replacement for Logan, but thats not going to happen any time soon as there are more lawyers and money in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord than Massport has.
I used to live in Honolulu, a lot of that "prime ocean beach land" by the airport is super polluted by both military and industry. Converting it will be super difficult to use due to those issues.
Not everyone needs to be a shouting influencer, Ray. What I and probably most of the rest of your viewers find compelling is your obvious passion and expertise. Your constant deadpan snark is endlessly entertaining for those of a thoughtful turn of mind, and it has a surprisingly meaningful undertone: It Doesn't Have to Be This Way. We love you just as you are.
One thing about PHX is that it's located on marginal floodplain, it'd be very difficult to build anything else there due to restrictions based on flooding.
@@andywhite3103The terminal building areas could be housing towers with green space where the runway is. DCA is the most ridiculous and pointless airport in the US bar none.
@@woodalexander "DCA is the most ridiculous and pointless airport in the US bar none." Where would you put it? DC is small. And no, we can't replace aviation with rail.
I'm far more disturbed by the giant golf course adjacent to Waikiki than HNL, personally. Also wonder how much of the scale of HNL is a consequence of the Naval presence, not just tourism (or historical use for US military that is re-purposed for tourism).
HNL is partly on military land and partly on landfill that 50 years ago used be nothing but ocean. Everything in Honolulu is based on making things convenient for tourism. They just spent 12 billion dollars on new rail line to get locals off the roads so there would be more room for rental cars.
@@selanryn5849 My comment was referring to Ala Wai just across the canal from Waikiki (seen at 4:18 in the video). Given how close in to downtown Honolulu that area is. But - I doubt redevelopment of that course will really solve much with the housing shortage - given the reality of who ends up buying condos in Waikiki.
@@fabes89 I can't speak to condo owners, but I lived in Waikiki the entire time I was in Hawaii, and was only making about $50-60k a year at the time. Which is not terrible, of course, but hardly rolling in cash either (and no, I didn't have a giant trust fund or anything of the sort either). There are rentals if you go looking...
How about golf courses that squander cities for a video idea? I can think of so many examples in north america, it's horrendous how empty golf courses waste precious real estate and block pedestrian access.
Honolulu: not only is georgraphy of steep mountains challenging, but the airport complex is also a joint military base with navy/air force (Joint Base Pearl harbor-Hickam). All of the last west of runways is the air force / navy base. As it handles long haul and military planes it needs the long runways.
The thing about HNL is that if they did want to move it, there are a couple of potential sites - the former NAS Barbers Point on the southwest corner of Oahu )now known as Kalealoa, used for general aviation), MCAS Kaneohe on the east coast, and Wheeler Army Airfield in the center of the island. I can’t see the military giving up Kaneohe or Wheeler; I’m not sure why Kalealoa isn’t being considered.
It is unbelieveable how bad the ground transport to LGA is. NYC has wonderful subway coverage, but from the upper east side, it takes 15 minutes by car and 90+ minutes by transit to get there.
Generally the best case for building an airport further out is when the one you have can’t expand and isn’t able (or won’t be able) to meet demand. That’s kind of what happened with Denver, I believe.
No. Not just no but hell no. As a pilot, and a person who has been in the aviation industry for 35 years, one thing that drives me crazy is when people build houses right up to the fence because the land is cheap, and then campaign to close the airport. We've already lost too many of our airports, especially the small ones. The only way airports should be allowed to be closed is if a new airport is developed to replace it. Period. I'm with you on just about everything else, but I'm a hard no on this one.
The relocation of the Austin Mueller Airport to Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport is an even better example of reclaiming space in a city than Stapleton. It closed June 22, 1999 and ABIA opened May 23, 1999 ( actually had a trip that left from Mueller and returned to ABIA that summer). The redevelopment of Mueller has been much more in depth that Stapleton.
@@starventure , what do you mean? Most of the land around ABIA is still undeveloped and the city limits end at the airport for the most part. The biggest "developments" near the airport are Travis County Landfill followed by the Travis County Correctional Complex. Seems like a good use of space compared to right of 5st St in the city center where Mueller was.
Denver Stapleton had a much larger footprint than Austin Mueller as the airport had four runways and was the 6th busiest in the world when it closed. The redevelopment of Stapleton has been the main reason why the city of Denver has increased its population by a few hundred thousand over the last 20 years as the city is completely landlocked by its suburban neighbors. Additionally at the same time Denver also redeveloped the former Lowry Air Force base which was comparable in size to Mueller in Austin. Both cities have taken their time to redevelop both projects to ensure that the redevelopment was done correctly as both are exemplary. Any city in the world who decides to relocate their airport in the future will be examining what Austin and Denver did as both cities set the bar in terms of best practices.
What you seem to be missing is that these ports were originally built well outside the city before the suburban sprawl reached them. The answer isn't moving the port, but not letter the sprawl happen in the first place.
Have you considered the fact that many of these airports were initially built far away from the city centre & over time development expanded out towards the airport? Many people who live near airports will lodge all of the complaints that you made about being close to an airport even though the airport was in the area before the housing development. In that case the people who move into a place close to the airport & make complaints about the airport are just like people who move into a place that’s near an arena/stadium and then complain about the arena/stadium.
That was the case with San Jose. The airport was built when San Jose was a small agricultural town and the city then grew all around it. However, at this point nobody who advocated for the airport to be so close to downtown is even alive anymore, the city is a gazillion times bigger, downtowns have gotten way taller, and it's much easier to get to SFO which is a major international hub than before. Is there any point to keeping the airport there? Like yeah I moved here but I moved here because of a job and the neighborhood I moved to just happens to be pretty much the only walkable neighborhood close to work and is in the direct path of the airport. You can scold me for wanting the airport gone out of some weird sense of fairness but who benefits from that?
@@eragonship4929 please watch the documentary “One Six Right.” Airports not only provide a vital service in terms of airline service, but so much more. They provide training, emergency evacuation, “private” flights and so much more revenue for the city than the land alone can provide. Just because it’s easier for you to fly commercially into another airport does not mean that another airport doesn’t fill a much needed service.
Simple: the traffic warrants it. Before Covid SFO was at 100% capacity, and traffic is gradually getting back to that point, so SFO can’t handle the additional traffic if SJC closes. Also, SJC is a good diversion for SFO, which is much more vulnerable to weather.
@@fatviscount6562 don't get me wrong, I love me some 15 daily flights from San Jose to LA but that might just be an issue with our lack of rail options
I can't really speak to the other cities on your list but I can speak to Phoenix - I'm a native in my 40's and I can tell you that the city grew around the airport. Skyharbor opened in the 1920's and as recently as the 1980's from Phoenix to Tempe (which is the other end of the airport) you had to drive thru undeveloped desert. There is Mesa Gateway that 10 years ago I would have told you was out in the sticks... now its surrounded by homes and businesses with more springing up every day. Chandler Municipal Airport was opened in 1948 - I live in roughly the same radius as it is from downtown chandler - my entire neighborhood was farmland up until the mid 1980's and the neighborhoods around it weren't really developed until the 90's and into the the 2000's. What I am getting at is that perhaps airports are not wasted space but rather part of the engines that drive development and therefore development happens around the airports. Does that mean that we should constantly tear down and recloate the airports to reclaim their space? If yes, how does that affect the businesses that intentionally locate near the airport... and if they move to follow the airport what then happens to the employees and land use demand for the reclaimed space? I do think that any continued development here over the next 50 years will start going vertically though, we're starting to run into issues with water and land ownership that will really start to dampen continued outward growth.
I noticed that, too. Having commercial and industrial development near airports seems much better than constantly having to move that. Plus, I'm still waiting to see one city or town in the west build and densify their ways into more affordability, especially closer in like Sky Harbor, former Stapleton in Denver, or former Mueller in ATX (formerly Austin).
It also has two different transit options in the MARC and the Light Rail for getting to and from the city. You can also use the MARC to get there from DC!
@@Messiman14ok be real for a sec. That shuttle to the Marc station is terrible. I’ve missed multiple trains because of the shuttle wait times. Takes 5ever to get to DC from BWI.
Many of these waterfront airports, were built with landfill. If Logan airport was not built the land it’s on would not exist. Also we do have the commuter rail which may not be the fastest shiniest system, but it does work and has a good record of on time performance, and is heavily utilized.
Laguardia kinda built it's self though, It's on a fair bit of 'reclaimed land' made from fill. It started life as a seaplane port. Probably should have bulldozed it, but now it's all renovated and that means it probably wont ever be closed (until it floods)
Relocating airports does not sound easy, but it does happen here and there. I am from Europe, so I am rather aware of examples here. The airport Berlin-Tegel (closed now) in Germany and Heraklion Airport in Greece (scheduled to be closed in 2025) come to mind. And that brings me to the topic suggestion of looking at any past re-development projects and how they worked out.
Berlin is nit an actual example since Schönefeld Airport was already there so the land acquisition/ environmental impact problems were relatively minor. The last new major airport before Istanbul was Munich, and that was over a generation ago.
Have recommended this before and I recognize it'd be a deep dive, but would love a conversation about the role of Greenbelts in limiting urban expansion. Tons of case studies suggest mixed results and a lot depends on local/regional leadership's willingness to uphold the intent of the Greenbelt, but I think it'd be a great topic. Love your stuff, man! Keep on keepin' on
Could include a shout out to Greenbelt, Maryland, the only US town created by fiat of the federal government. It was meant to be part of that movement for better or worse. I’ve always wondered what City Nerd would say about FDR’s attempts at urbanism
Greenbelts just cause high housing prices and aren't even really good for the environment. Frequently, development just occurs on the other side of the greenbelt, causing even more traffic and pollution.
@@jessamineprice5803 there were two other towns built as part of FDR's Greenbelt Towns program, those being Green Hills near Cincinnati, OH, and and Greendale, Wisconsin. Then during WW2, there was the mutual ownership defense housing division which built communities near military factories.
@@tonywalters7298 True! I've always been curious how Green Hills and Greendale developed after they were sold off by the government. Greenbelters brag that they have the best preserved of the federal towns. But that whole era was an interesting period for federal involvement in housing.
@@jessamineprice5803 near where I grew up there was a community named Greenmont Village that was part of the mutual defense ownership program, which was a short lived successor program. The community itself consists of single and double unit homes that are still mutually owned to this day, and it also has a local grocery store and a community center
One of the key things that this video fails to address is the history of the airport locations. For example: Las Vegas used to be an isolated airport away from congested areas before suburban sprawl and the expansion of the Las Vegas Strip encroached on it. That’s the common trend for all of these airports, when built they weren’t in the middle of built up areas when they opened.
if a city has a functioning economy, a new airport will swiftly attract an office park, and then another and another, and then there will be neighborhoods built for people who want to live near those offices, and you will soon have the same problem. the fact is, building the airport makes the real estate around it more valuable, and people start to use it.,
I've been an airline pilot for 12 years, and all of these airports are my favorite ones to fly to. I agree 100% that they need to go, but the close in space (and airspace) limited airports are the most fun and rewarding to actually land at. LGA is my favorite airport of all. The views you get are always incredible. It's a nice reward when your coming home from a long trip.
Ahhh, LGA River Visual 13 is also absolutely wonderful as a passenger (sitting on the right side of the cabin)... One of the best views I ever saw of Manhattan.
It's one of the most rewarding approaches to fly in the whole world. The approach to 22 when your coming from the Korey arrivaval from the south and you go up the hudson at 3000ft is also a killer experience! LGA just rocks. I love the hustle and bustle, the challenge, and all the amazing views. @@KyrilPG
Harry Reid Airport in Las Vegas is an interesting discussion. As others have pointed out, when it was first constructed it WAS on the edge of the city, and has since been enveloped in sprawl. That being said, there is a plan to build a secondary airport south of Las Vegas near Jean, NV, currently called the Ivanpah Valley airport… however LAS would remain.
I think that is one of the arguments in support of brightline west, is that the rail line would allow for reduction in flights from LA-LV and could free up capacity and would be cheaper than building a second airport.
It's amazing how weak the city government has been not being able to stand up to the taxi lobby to allow extention of the monorail to the airport or being able to construct some other form of mass transit to the airport. My feeling is that if some big developer said "Move the airport, I need the land" Harry Reid would soon be gone.
I'd love to see a video where you share your thoughts on slip lanes within cities. I recently moved to a city that uses them everywhere and I hate them - both as a pedestrian AND a driver
Check out Gothenburg, Sweden. The largest city that has achieved 0 traffic fatalities. Slip lanes allow a road to be crossed in stages and slip lanes provide buses with more favorable geometry. At their core, slip lanes are just a 1 way, 1 lane road that ends in a right turn. The easiest kind of road and the easiest kind of turn, for both driver to drive and for the pedestrian to cross. Higher turning speeds is a factor in more severe crashes but that can be solved by traffic calming measures like narrowing and speed bumps.
If LaGuardia was removed, Flushing would be heavily densified, resembling more like LIC (same with removing MIA to build supertalls in Downtown and Brickel with height restrictions are lifted). Then again, new airports are going to have to be built outside of major metro areas and will need highways and rail transit to connect them. Then again, you also have places like Philly where it’s small airport is the main airport and building a new one would have to be in Amish Country which will be a NIMBY hell to begin with.
Would be cool if you added what these areas were like when the airports were built. I have to imagine some were much further from the city centers when built and now the city has enveloped them
You are dead wrong about Boston. It is exactly what is needed for the area. People for miles around can travel the world without driving or paying for long term parking if they choose to.
Frankly, this was a lot less thoughtful than the typical CityNerd video. I have two issues with it, and you already mentioned the first of those concerns yourself: The fact that this "complaint" contradicts your normal thesis; that transportation should be convenient. When I fly into Chicago, I feel lucky if my flight goes into Midway because, even though Midway's facilities are vastly inferior to O'Hare's, I can get where I'm going in the city faster than it takes to just get a shuttle out of O'Hare. Therefore this space is not "wasted", it is serving an important purpose. The second issue I have is that many of these airports were originally built on city outskirts or even far from the city. The fact that the cities grew out to them (including residential neighborhoods) indicates that their presence is not perceived as a waste of good land. So, not your best effort, but even Lou Gehrig struck out on occasion.
Most traverlers though Miami are international travelers. It's a huge hub for Central and South America. You can't just redirect all of that to Atlanta. It's also a major hub for people taking cruises, which yes, gross.
I think the problem is that people always end up living close to an airport. So you place an airport far outside a city and sooner or later the city has moved to the airport, and then you need to move the airport again. And once you've removed the airport, there's a good chance that the interests that pushed the city towards that airport disappears and the value of the land plummets making it worthless again - like it was before it was an airport.
That's only true in America really. Major European airports are all outside city limits like Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Frankfurt, Schiphol in Amsterdam, Madrid. There's some development that takes place near it oftentimes due to good transit connection to the rest of the city but in majority of cases the city seems to grow decently evenly in all directions until it engulfs the airport. American cities just grew way too much and are way too large to have airports outside of urban limits
People aren’t drawn to living close to an airport though. Most people aren’t flying very often for work or anything, especially in the digital age. And even then, having good rail connections from the city to the airport would fulfill the need for access. It’s true that some of these airports were in the middle of nowhere before people started living closer. However, that’s not because they were drawn to the airport. That’s just how suburban sprawl works. Those developments spread out in all directions
@@thedapperdolphin1590People are drawn to jobs. Lots of industry and high paying jobs need to be close to the airport. Every aerospace business in every city is next to its airport and most manufacturing and hardware tech is just outside.
@@thedapperdolphin1590large airports can literally be the biggest employer in that city. Denver international employs 35,000 people, the largest employer in Colorado.
I think the moral of the story is to build airports on the edge of cities, zone the land around airports to give a buffer against residential sprawl and ensure there is good mass transit connectivity. In most countries this will require collaboration between local, state and federal governments to get it right. I hope the same mistakes aren't made with Western Sydney's new airport and residential development is kept away
For anyone interested in the redevelopment of Paris in the 19th century, might I recommend Esther Da Costa Meyer's book: Dividing Paris: Urban Renewal and Social Inequality, 1852-1870. It's a very recent scholarly treatment of the topic that touches on a lot of issues familiar to the modern urbanist.
I think Brightline does go to Orlando's international airport which has a lot of domestic flights already. Connecting to Atlanta for the airport to go to Miami would probably be a ridiculously long journey. (It's about 660 miles or Going to Heathrow and taking a train to Genoa Italy)
Yeah it's a 10 hour drive from Atlanta to Miami. I'm sure if Brightline extended to ATL, it would still take between 6 and 7 hours to get all the way down south.
Brightline goes under parts of Fort Lauderdale's Airport though so it wouldn't be that ridiculous to add a station there. Also Tri-Rail gets really close and sort of has a station but that connection could also be improved.
DCA is never going to happen because the politicians like having a convenient airport. I've seen Howard Dean and Paul Ryan there. Being from DC, my immediate reaction was OH no, you'll take away the way closer airport than Dulles. However, the housing crunch in Arlington is so bad that converting DCA would be worth it.
How close was Chicago Midway to making this list? I know that it has a relatively small footprint for modern airport standards. Maybe that's what saved it.
I also wondered about Midway, but in addition to being relatively small it's also not super close to what at least I'd think of city center. Looking at Google Maps, the 7 mile "cutoff' from the video "only" gets you to Chinatown. By comparison, Soldier Field and the Sears Tower are both about 8 miles (8.0 and 8.1, respectively). All that's measuring from the nearest corner of MDW, and that's as the crow flies rather than network distance. Now, if Meigs Field still existed... I'd be *super* curious where *it* would land.
@@EvanED If Meigs still existed, I still don't think it would have made the list. It looks like only major airports were considered. Plus, you could never convert Meigs into anything urbanist -- no housing or anything what was mentioned in the video. A park or nature preserve would be it's only fate.
City of Edmonton used to have an airport, right near downtown. Known as The Municipal Airport. They first shut it down for all commercial flights when they built the International Airport. The only flights allowed were emergency and private owners. Finally after a vote, it was shutdown completely. The land was sold to developers, 4 different companies. Now its being built up with homes that are eco friendly.
San Jose Airport, despite being next to downtown is weirdly difficult to get to without a car. There's currently a study to build a Glydwys pod car autonomous track from the train station, which isnt even in the core of downtown. That whole project is insane but I guess its a solution. The airport stunts the growth of buildings due to its height retrictions. The airplanes fly low directly over the CBD. Not to mention the noise all the way down to Comm hill. Also there's an entire neighborhood just south of the airport bulldozed in the 1960s due to FAA requirements replaced with nothing but open dirt (and lately a city of unhoused). The City's put a of public works money into the airport so its not going anywhere anytime soon, but I agree that one should be considered for relocation. Though the regional airport if Reid Hillview actually has been proposed for closure and redevelopment.
Agree completely. I've been wanting to see SJC relocated for years, maybe down to Coyote Valley or just eliminated with improved rail links to SFO and OAK.
One thing I've experienced with these intercity airports where the city is built up around them is that you can run into an issue with noise restrictions to where the airport cannot operate 24 hours a day, like in San Diego. We had to stay overnight, but the airport doesn't remain open to the public, so we ended up just sleeping on a table inside the main entrance after having to leave the airport to go find food since none of the restaurants stay open either. I don't mind a far out of the city airport, it just needs to have good transportation to access it.
Due to noise restrictions. After take off from SNA (Santa Ana) the pilots have to throttle back the engines for a few miles until they're over the ocean. Then they continue the climb out. Needless to say, as a passenger hearing the engine noise suddenly die down and feeling the plane decelerate immediately after take off is a very disconcerting experience.
Basically the Kai Tak effect isn't it? Hong Kong both redeveloped the former airport land but maybe more importantly it allowed the area nearby to grow vertically, and we know Hong Kong definitely grew vertically. And on the topic of Asia I remember a couple of the Japanese airports I've been to (Oita and Narita) were _very_ far from the urban centers and I actually liked that separation. Though the other 2two (Fukuoka and Haneda) were more central. Something else to note is that a number of the waterfront airports are probably filled in land rather than having taken the full area from the city.
The irony is the checkerboard corridor at Kai Tak reverted to parkland after the airport moved and Kowloon was torn down. The old Kowloon walled city site is now a park. Before Kowloon was demolished it took up most of the space in the corridor between the checkerboard and Kai Tak.
As someone from San Diego, san diegos airport is the most limiting to to any city in the country, the airport limits downtown to 500ft height limit, and 300 in midway (recenyly raised to this) and little italy got badly destroyed by the construction of the airport. The whole city is limited by it. Its wild just how badly it affects us
The abrupt transition from Little Italy to airport related warehouses and parking is always to weird to go past, it could have been a huge waterfront continuation of such a vibrant neighborhood in another scenario.
One observation - several of these are coastal airports, or ones that are on rivers. I can imagine that early reasoning for some airports would be to minimize extra flight time and fuel needs for trans oceanic flights. This would have been more of a factor for earlier plane designs than it is now, so our cost/benefit analysis has changed. River adjacent airports also allow planes to fly over water and reduce the noise for the adjacent land use in the regions. The locations on rivers/coastlines also may have necessitated filling in land to create space that had not existed.
Others have mentioned airport approaches, too. It's a lot harder to land -- especially in low visibility from clouds, fog, rain, snow -- if there are hills in the way. So it's long been common to put airports in the middle of flat land, or near large bodies of water. And of course, a few like LaGuardia are old enough that they were served by flying boats* in the 1920s-40s -- which _needed_ water to be their runways. * Airplanes whose bottom halves were boatlike hulls, so they could take off and land on water. Using water like this was cheaper than building a runway back in the day. Plus if your plane had a problem mid-flight over the ocean -- a _much_ more likely occurrence in the days of piston-driven propeller engines -- you could land and deal with it if you had to.
San Diego seems to have relatively recently abandoned hope for replacing SAN. They are currently working on renovations and a plan for a rail connection between downtown and the airport is underway.
The rail connection will most likely be a automated rubber tyred light metro line with 2 minute frequencies providing a one seat ride between airport and Downtown!
@@alexhaowenwong6122I hope they instead opt for a steel-wheel based automated train instead of rubber-tire based, solely to leave open the possibility of interoperability with another system in the future. For example, SANDAG's regional plan eventually calls for (what I assume to be) a branch of the purple line into downtown, and it would be wonderful if that could be directly hooked up with the airport line to provide fast frequent trips from all over the city to the airport without a transfer.
I was disappointed the last time I was there that I was the only traveler taking the fast and inexpensive city bus to downtown - it was only airport workers. Good that it's serving them but why don't travelers take the bus? I guess the rail system will help get people out of the "transit is for poor people" mindset.
Orange County really screwed up IMHO, when MCAS El Toro was closed and PUD'd, instead of closing and reclaiming the much more valuable John Wayne property. It would've been a lot more convenient to North County San Diego, taken some of the pressure off of Lindbergh, and allowed for bigger jets. But as always the NIMBYs and nouveau riche decided, just like La Jolla did with the Miramar proposal, to do away with aviation altogether...Now with the advent of roadblock agencies like AQMD and Coastal Management, it is nigh unto impossible to build or even retrofit an airport in SoCal, let alone expand it. The Cross Border Express at Rodriguez Field would be a lot more effective if more US flights were allowed out of Tijuana (and I could throw a rock from the American side and break a windshield in the parking lot at TIJ) but the wallbuilding foamers can be thanked for that not happening...
@@bartphlegar8212 Back in 1954, the Navy, who was in charge of Miramar at the time, offered the base to San Diego for the ridiculously high price of $1 so that the city could move the airport. At the time, Miramar was considered to be too far outside of the city, so the city declined. The Navy then began to make better use of the base, and then, with the realignment of the early 1990s, the base was returned to the Marine Corps to counteract the closing of El Toro and Tustin. By then, the city realized that, ooops, we might want to turn that into a commercial airport after all. Too bad. The city had their chance, and the people who tried in the 2000s to reclaim it were out of luck. The service branches (and federal government) had made too many subsequent decisions based on the use of Miramar. Also, I recall hearing a story that people within the Marine Corps community swore was true: when the Marines took over Miramar again, it was announced that flights would begin on a certain day. Instead, flight ops began the day before, and there were no noise complaints. On the day flights were supposed to begin, no flying took place, and there were overrun with noise complaints. If that story doesn't encompass my 8 years of living in "America's Finest City," I don't know what does. That and the frequent presence of mattresses on the 5. Actually, we still have a copy of a letter written to Congressman Issa (that went viral before going viral was a term) from a gentleman who moved to Fallbrook and was shocked that his peaceful retirement was disturbed by the noise from the helicopters at Pendleton. The guy theorized that they were being used as a taxi service for officers (oh good Lord 🙄) or that perhaps they could be made quieter by either some sort of mufflers⁉or by changing the angle of the rotors (😂). He couldn't fathom what they could be doing flying so much at night, so perhaps all flights could be limited to daytime hours (No, that's when lots of training takes place because in combat, many operations take place at night for obvious reasons). Point is, it amazes me how communities build around airports (and military air bases) and then complain about the noise when these facilities have been in place for decades.
You should do a video on Toronto's Downsview Airport. Its one of the most interesting massive redevelopment projects in a North American city. The site has a super cool history too from being an airfield to a military base to a testing facility for Bombardier aircraft to now a planned mixed use community repurposed from the old runways and hangars. Definitely unique.
It's frustrating, but also reasons though. It means there's lots of approaches over water. The approaches are actually the worst damage to the city, because they're loud and disruptive and can allow only very short buildings. It's why the airport is always in a sea of low density low value development. Some waterfront airports are also on dredged, flood prone land that's otherwise problematic. Exceptions exist, that ONLY fail like San Diego, where they seem to still have only land approaches.
As an aviation nerd who lives in Boston im really conflicted on the airport because on one hand you’re correct, on another hand it’s the most beautiful airport location in the world and when you’re flying out you get incredible views of the harbor and the city
Fwiw, while Honolulu International is close to the city in absolute terms, I can tell you that growing up there, the airport felt WAY outside the city. And one of its runways is on a manmade “island” out to shore, so it’s sort of using less existing land than it would have otherwise. Now, when it comes to public transportation to the airport 😂, boy that’s a whole worst 10 list of its own.
Good points. With any luck the rail will connect ‘Ewa/Kapolei to the airport in just two years, but of course no one is holding their breath, and it's still a long way from helping the rest of the island.
If you take into account how SD spent MILLIONS extending the blue trolley line to the wrong side of the airport, forcing travellers to take a shuttle, it should easily shoot up to the #1 spot
I live in Mexico City & we had a big airport fiasco for so much time, The AICM airport was supposed to be demolished & be reconstructed to a mixed used area with the now cancelled Texcoco airport plan, I think it would be a good location too be redeveloped because the airport is extremely overused & it’s at least at 99% capacity soo there’s no way to be expanded. Soo yeah there we go
Did you take into account if the airports were built before the adjacent communities? It’s hard to penalize an airport for existing when it was there first.
So we once had to get a kid from Purchase NY to Manchester NH. OMFG what a mess, an Uber to a train station in CT, a train ride to South Station, a confusing transfer to a bus to Manchester that got held up in Traffic in Lawrence MA. I’m still struggling with what we lost out of the Old Boston and Maine system. When there is a train between Montreal and Boston it DOES NOT go through Concord and Manchester! It goes down the Connecticut river Valley and then cuts east to Boston! You notice I say “when there is” because Amtrak consistently complains of low ridership on that train. Gee, maybe if it served Manchester-Concord you might get some ridership. But what the hell do I know?
The most remarkable overnight airport swap as the closure oh Hong Kong Kai Tak and opening of Chep Lok Kok. Famously, Kai Tak was the most exciting approach in the world with landing between a virtual canyon of high rise building (one of which I lived in). Seriously, it would make a very interesting subject for your channel. Edit: I now live in Japantown San Jose close to the Airport. It is really not annoying and I really like walking to the VTA to ride home. In fact, I would compare SJ to the old Berlin Tegal, a great, compact downtown airport replaced by the 20 years late monstrosity international airport.
A lot these airports started as military airfields built so fighter planes could get up quickly to defend the cities with their associated industrial and transportation assets from enemy bombers. With the end of the World War II and change in aircraft technology (jet fighters vs. piston driven fighters), they were no longer necessary could be cheaply purchased by municipalities. It might well be market forces that will drive conversion of these airports to housing and mixed use - essentially opportunities for real estate developers.
I don't have numbers or anything, but I have to assume Honolulu has a lot of freight/shipping traffic as well due to it's location. I'd put money on it being as big as it needs to be without making drastic cuts to service
one topic id love to see is how to think prospectively about the new 76ers arena here in Philly that is currently being fought over in every corner. we typically look backwards at these projects and see how they messed things up, it would be interesting to look at the proposals, discuss the potential impact and maybe what they are missing or not thinking about prior to the first shovel actually going in the ground. its a big topic of debate here now, and the anti-arena in the city folks are making a lot of good points. but i havent seen a lot of counterpoints or details about the potential positive impact to mass transit (just the major logistical issues with parking for an 18,000 seat arena that might be plopped into chinatown)
You should check out the Wheeler District in OKC. It was once an airport, now it's a new urbanist development with a fairly walkable character. It's only about 1/4 built-out at this point, but I have high hopes for its future!
Louisville’s airport is one of the closest in to downtown of any city’s. When the airport authority 50 years ago proposed building a new airport in a rural area east of the city, the quite affluent and politically savvy dairy farmers found data showing that jet noise reduced milk production, so the plan was nixed (the existing airport was upgraded and expanded instead). This brought such an increase in noise to three neighborhoods that the city declared them unlivable (technically “blighted”) and moved everyone out. But the cows still have their quiet and the dairy industry their assets.
Ahhh yes, but did any of the people fighting a new location for Louisville Int'l envision that it would come to be one of the world's largest cargo hubs (UPS)? I wonder if they would change their mind now if they could.
My post probably should have included the UPS angle, because the city declaring the neighborhoods “blighted” was not just from airport expansion, but more specifically because the UPS hub brought planes in every night from about 10 pm through 4 am in 10 or 15 minute intervals, which was far more frequent than the airport had ever had. I mean after midnight, there had historically been 3 or 4 jet flights nightly coming in, but with UPS added, there were that many every 30 or 35 minutes in the late night. My apartment was well away from the airport, but I saw planes coming in so low I could read the plane’s N number from my balcony.
And in the case of Memphis, the city is too low income to really protest which likely factored into why FedEx put the worlds largest air cargo hub there.
@@mrvwbug4423 It may be too low income for the powers that be to _listen to_ the protests, but the city of the famous 1968 sanitation strike that MLK gave his life to support isn't too poor to do protests.
Had this video been made 20 years ago, Edmonton City Centre Airport would have been on this list. However, the city closed it down and is redeveloping the area. Another side effect is that Edmonton has been able to build taller skyscrapers.
City Centre wasn't a major airport, by the 70s all flights had moved to YEG, it was relegated to a museum for the rest of it's life pretty much. When Pacific Western died, so did the airport, it didn't have a reason to exist, plus it's still 30 minutes from downtown.
I live in the LA Area and I can tell you a terrible decision that was made, the Main one being, that there was a former El Toro Marine base that would have been a much better airport for Orange County and many residents blocked it so now they are stuck with one of or probably the most dangerous airport in the states that can’t handle long haul aircraft so they are stuck traveling 50 miles up to LAX to travel internationally
...and redevelopment of El Toro faces all the same NIMBY problems on top of the enviromental ones, it's still moving at a snail's pace over 30 years after the military base realignment plan was released. I lived in SD when all that went down and I was really disappointed with the lack of leadership there. Usually the voters with the power to sway politicians don't have the best interests of the whole region in mind. El Toro was large enough to accommodate all LAX AND John Wayne traffic combined.
Putting an airport in the middle of a city when you could have it on the outskirts and accessed by a rail line is almost as absurd as having commuter airports in every city instead of high speed rail corridors in the first place.
Building a city around an existing airport, and then complaining that the airport is the problem is the "absurd" part. And spare us the pitch for HSR as a replacement for airports. That is even more absurdity.
@@WillmobilePlus Spare us the pitch that airports are a replacement for HSR. A ton of them around the US are redundant, and there is absolutely no benefit to having one downtown when you still have to deal with checking in and going through security for potentially several hours. From personal experience even an airport that is a 10 minute drive from downtown (for example ABQ) that requires me to wait around on a Uber to get to and from is vastly inferior to one that's as much as 40 minutes away by metro line (for example ATL), and both are vastly inferior to just hopping on a train that doesn't require you to go through as strict security, doesn't require you to navigate the entire maze of concourses, gives you more personal space, and actually lets you have a laptop out the whole duration (no turbulence, no takeoff and landing). Sadly these trains almost don't exist so anything that isn't the distance from GA to TX away I'd simply drive to. Still a huge waste of money just as airfare would be, but at least I don't have to deal with hours of check-in and can have some personal space around me while spending every waking moment staring down an asphalt corridor to see if I can get all the way down it without any casualties. For regional inter-city transit trains are the best of both worlds, the only reason commuter airports see such heavy regional use is because there are no other good options.
@@WillmobilePlus You're the only sane person I've seen in this comment section lol Airports being where the metro areas are is a good thing in every possible way. Both the employees and the people who intend to use the airport want the convenience of being near it. No one actually wants to drive out into the middle of nowhere for this. And I say this as someone who wants HSR. It's not ever going to replace airports.
I understand that Logan has expanded... but as an initial location decision, San Diego seems much worse because the orientation isn't taking any advantage of the water. With any airport there will be a dead zone on the approach path. Waterfront, especially fill land like LaGuardia, DC National, and Honolulu thus becomes a good economic location for an airport when the zero-value dead zone is out over the water. Also it's relatively easier to build a landing strip on fill than buildings. What really jumps out at me is that the non-waterfront featured cities tend to be badly in need of parks.
Was wondering if you could make a video using google earth talking about the sprawl going on in China. There's supposedly over 1 billion empty houses/condos in the country due to over production of housing. The entire landscape of their cities has changed into giant gutless condos and apartments.
This video is simply wrong BOS and DCA are both prone to flooding, thus perfect places for assets that can relocate temporarily. LAS is really a perfect place too, located near the final destination for the fast majority of air travelers who should not drive. The problem is the county not building the relatively cheap infrastructure to make the visit car-free. Locating airport far from the city center promotes sprawl and exceedingly poor land use. Denver was a unique case due to the Army vacating the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Greenfield airports create carbon disasters, not just in the US, the new Istanbul Airport opened without mass transit in place, so that all passengers rely on internal combustion engines for their hour-plus ride to and from the airport. As you pointed out, Stapleton redevelopment is still far from complete after a quarter century, with minuscule amount of affordable housing built. So your own example disproves your thesis. The land around SJC is actually a local minimum, with adjacent rail yards and brownfield sites. Relocating SHC would triple carbon emissions without actually adding housing, at least in your lifetime. Yes, LaGuardia could be bulldozed if JFK and EWR are reconfigured like ATL for operational efficiency, which, over time is what ORD is doing. However, all three Port Authority airports are maxed out during prime time using current configuration. Port Authority can also structure fees to encourage reasonable use: British Airways does not need to schedule flights to London every hour, nor Delta one every hour to Atlanta-only for those flights to burn fuel on the taxiways first an hour. Bad government policy forces airlines to Jake idiotic decisions. The problem is not airports near urban centers. Closing any of the airports on your list won’t add all that many single-family lots. Building more mid-density (3-7 story) housing would make enough room for airports.
Disney world is supposed to have a special concrete on the ground that is softer and easier on the feet of its guests. Is that true? If so is it something that could be used on sidewalks in cities? We’re would the best places to use it? Please consider making a video on this topic!!!!!!!!!!
I see your Miles Davis record on the wall and it makes me think about ways urbanism in cities like New York have allowed for communities of musicians to develop their craft, artists to work together, and styles to merge. Is the intersection of music/arts and urbanism something you've explored? Has there been any research done on this? Would love to know your thoughts. I would ask on your Patreon, but I am a jazz musician in New York myself, and the grind to make rent money is tough enough as it is...
I’ve always been interested in making a doc about how NYC has a trail of ‘Artist Havens’ that started in downtown and the LES in the 70’s/80’s then followed the L train to North/East Williamsburg in the 90s then Bushwick. Sad tale of loft dreams and gentrification in the MFA ghetto. The best an artist can do is find some rent control situation and hang on to it.
"valuable urban acreage" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. NJ homes can be quite cheap right across the Hudson 1 mile from Manhattan, so the opportunity cost claim is also really shaky. Simply building more 5 over 1s on existing streets would absorb the entire real estate demand in the vast majority of American cities.
There have been numerous attempts to try to relocate San Diego's airport. One problem is it would be hard to redevelop that area due to the California Coastal Commission since it's near the water. There are a lot of restrictions for such areas. The only other options were locations farther inland. One was to share MCAS Miramar. The military wasn't having any part of that. Another location was Brown Field at the border, another military or former military airport. This plan would have been a joint airport with Tijuana since it's airport is right across the border. In fact, you can walk across the border into Tijuana's airport and some international travelers do just that because it's cheaper to fly out of TJ. That plan fell through. A third option was to build it in El Centro. That's 115 miles to the east over the mountains in the desert. As you could probably imagine, that went nowhere so SAN is staying put for the foreseeable future.
Taking land from Miramar still seems like a no brainer to me. I don’t see why the Marine Corps can’t just reallocate some land out east or north as a replacement, or just get rid of it. Miramar is a ton of prime land for a larger airport.
Miramar seems to be the only viable place to relocate it to. Building something out in El Centro, sure there is a lot of land, but look how well LA World Airports did trying to make Palmdale an alternative to LAX and BUR
@@bigfootNPC I agree but the military doesn't. I don't think it's the Marine Corp but the Pentagon itself that is not willing to give up that land. The military only gives up land when they close a base like what happened to Alameda and Treasure Island.
@@ShonnMorris your Brown Field idea makes more sense but that'd require fighting NIMBYs in the city of Chula Vista and relocating a lot of auto dismantling lots. And you'd have to consider the mountains in the east causing navigation problems
DCA isn't going anywhere as long as Congress wants an easy way out of town. In fact, they recently tried to increase service to DCA. One of the problems with DC in general is that those with the most say in how the city is run have little interest in the actual city.
Logan is an interesting one to look at. They did take a lot of land from East Boston, but also most of it is on landfill in the harbor. So if you took that land away would you just count the original Island? Also massport has a big push to try to get Providence and Manchester to take more air traffic. They're even trying to get Worcester to get some air traffic, but everybody wants to fly out of Logan. For a flights per acreage standpoint, Logan is incredibly efficient. Right now the downtown is mostly just trying to get business people back into the offices with mixed results. Oh and there is an airport in Norwood right off of i-95 that could be used for commercial travel, as if the surrounding towns would ever allow that.
Yeah Logan is incredibly efficient for its size. I'd say they probably handle more flights a day than Detroit, and DTW is way bigger, in terms of acreage, than Logan.
@@schalitz1also Logan is one of the main entrypoints into the US for international flights from Europe, many people fly into Boston and transfer to elsewhere in the country from here.
@@BendyDH From my personal experience I'd say it's far less than NYC for example. Logan is my home airport and I fly transatlantic from there often, and most the people I speak to on the flights, somewhere in New England, which had very few flights from Logan is their final destination if not Boston itself.
Noise is the biggest problem. The landing noise extends up to ten miles from the runway. Planes arrive one per minute on both runways here in Minneapolis. I live six miles out but right under one of the two primary patterns. It's gotten much worse then when we bought here in 1985.
I love Sky Harbor, but if you really wanted that land for new development it wouldn't be hard to develop Phoenix-Mesa Gateway into a new main airport for Phoenix. It's only 30 minutes away in Mesa, and it already serves a couple million passengers a year.
Miami, in the 1970s a replacement airport was conceived and they built a 12,000ft runway was built and was supposed to be the new Miami International Airport because of the SST in the Everglades but it canceled due to the cancellation of SST. The runway is still in operation and is used to train instrument(ILS) approaches. Anyone can fly there if you call ahead.
So, if you scrolled this far, it's because you decided you wanted to read...THE COMMENTS. Have you read the comments on my videos before?? What can I say, you're a free agent, I can't stop you from inflicting that kind of damage on your own psyche. But as a last ditch diversion effort, you should exit the comments NOW by clicking on my link for 40% off an annual subscription to Nebula, the creator-owned streaming service! go.nebula.tv/citynerd
Thanks!
Damn, caught me red-handed LOL!
you play a shrewd game sir
Pinned ..📌
How will all the Rich folk Balloon into vegas
😂 DAM good sell
To be fair, some of these airports, especially Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San José airports, were built on what was originally outskirts of the city. Las Vegas was surrounded by desert, and many areas of Phoenix and San José were once vast swathes of farmland. The suburbs would later expand into these areas, and these airports became quickly surrounded by suburban and urban expansion.
There's no excuse for Las Vegas airport not having a direct rail connection to the strip though.
And these cities can always redevelop as the city grows larger
@@Free-g8rHopefully, the Boring Company "Loop" will be allowed to expand to the airport. That would provide a tremendous option.
@kb_100 blame the taxi unions for that. They cut a monorail half a mile short of connecting to the airport because it would hurt their fares. All hell broke loose when Uber arrived in town too. They've got a stranglehold on any sort of efficient travel so much so that any proposition usually gets shot down immediately.
@@indianapatsfan Just do a regular metro service.
One has to remember, though, that most airports were built in sparcely developed areas long ago and that the city wrapped around it. This has "buy a cheap house at the end of a runway and complain to the city about the noise" vibes. Even Denver, who packed up Stapleton and moved out into the middle of the plains already has housing at its doorstep less than 30 years later.
DCA (#3 on this list) was never at the edge of any city. Neither was San Diego (#2). DCA is within sight of the Capitol building and San Diego Int’l is right next to Old Town San Diego
@@michaelimbesi2314 San Diego airport was filled in marsh flats where there wasn't any city. The reaches of midway, point Loma were not developed. The airport and the region was an area of industry where they built aircraft at the consolidated plant. San Diego grew around the airport.
This whole video is the epitome of looking with envious eyes.
@@michaelimbesi2314DCA is also built partially on reclaimed land. If you look at DCA and the surrounding area Potomac Yard it was nothing but rail yards 50 years ago so there was nothing in the area that matter when it was built. The area built up around it and you could say the same for Bolling AIr Force Base, the Coast Guard HQ and Homeland Security HQ on the other side of the river from DCA so there was never gonna be anything really built there.
@@michaelimbesi2314
"San Diego Int’l is right next to Old Town San Diego"
It's very desirable, it makes it very convenient to get there. Most west coast cities are like that.
@@EricTheBlue2010 No excuse! Shoulda been a train station surrounded by rabbit hutches full of deplorables from the very beginning! See my comment above re: aviation history.
As someone from a family that lived in the shadow of La Guardia Airport since before the airport existed-my European ancestors settled in Queens in 1922, and didn't leave our family homes until 2015-I do have to say that it's important to remember that when some of these airports were built, they weren't in city centers. I'm of two minds about whether or not LGA really belongs on this list. LGA opened in 1929 as North Beach Airport (though it did not begin operations as a public airport until 1934), and the Flushing IRT line, the nearest subway route, predates this by 12 years, having been completed in 1917 as far as what is now 103rd St-Corona Plaza station, well beyond LGA. The population of Queens more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, and LGA still wasn't a public airport. The population of Queens is now more than double what it was in the 1930s. LGA was established as a public passenger service airport precisely because the existing airports, EWR and Floyd Bennett Field, were too far out from the city center at the time.
Shutting down LGA really just isn't feasible without hundreds of billions of dollars first invested in new high speed rail along the Northeast Corridor, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon, if ever, because of the bias American politicians have against rail and the inevitable NIMBY opposition in a society which is entirely predicated on private ownership of land. There's not going to be a modern-day Robert Moses to make something like that happen. Just look at what's already happened with Chris Christie absurdly burying the ARC project that would have ultimately resulted in long term, permanent windfall gains for New Jersey. This was arguably the most important infrastructure project in the US since the construction of the original Hudson River Tunnels, and his administration's refusal to back the ARC project set us back by more than a decade.
I'd say it's also important to remember that the history of La Guardia is inseparable from the history of seaplanes, particularly the Boeing 314 "Clipper" Flying Boats, the first transatlantic international passenger airliners, since La Guardia is also (and was originially established as) a seaplane airport, and therefore inseparable from the history of commercial passenger aviation, itself.
Only 8 years from when your family moved in to when LGA opened? Something tells me they were well aware of the impending development and jumped on cheap land that was likely touted as "about be be in the shadow of an airport." 😂
The ARC tunnel was buried by Christie, because NY State didn't want to split the cost-overruns cost with NJ. It was all gonna fall on NJ taxpayers. Knowing how often cost overruns happen in any public infrastructure project, that seemed like a no-brainer.
@@a.c.2219thanks for sharing your thoughts even though i disagree with them
IRT Flushing (7)is a current non-starter. BMT (N/W) Astoria line is the best/only way to hit LGA today.
Honestly, I don't even know if it should be on this list. it's a flood plain.
Miami actually started building a new airport way back in the '60s as a replacement for MIA. It was expected that it would be a major hub for supersonic jets, so it was put way out in the middle of the Everglades for noise abatement purposes. The project was cancelled after the first runway was completed. It's still there - a 2-mile long strip of concrete in the middle of the swamp, halfway between Miami and Naples.
It's still in use for training.
While that airport might have made more logistical sense and spurred more public transit development in South Florida, it also would have been catastrophically destructive to the ecosystem of the Everglades. And more development would have undoubtedly sprung up around it, doing even greater damage. Marjory Stoneman Douglas (whose name we know for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately) led the charge in putting the kibosh on that.
@@marshallsokoloff its identifier is literally TNT - "training and transition," anecdotally
I'm surprised that our esteemed host didn't know about this.
The Everglades isn’t actually a swamp…it’s more like a very very wide very very slow moving river. It is a much more unique place than thought.
Of these airports, Honolulu is most justified. Air travel has no realistic substitutes when you live on an island, and along the shoreline is the only flat place to build a runway.
A mountainous island, no less, which very much limits where you can safely build a runway in the first place.
Agree. Of all volcanic islands I can think of all of them have an airport on the coast.
And it used to be an Air Force base (or still shares some functions with the Air Force)
A lot of LGA and BOS are built on landfill. Likely the land wouldn't be there at all if it wasn't for the airport development.
But maybe they could've infilled to build more city and then put the airport elsewhere
I personally think LaGuardia should be relocated to Bridgeport's Sikorski Airport. On the New York side, LaGuardia could be rebuilt into a waterfront transit-oriented community with ample park space, and high-capacity metro lines, connecting to downtown Manhattan in 25 minutes. The glitzy new terminal could be repurposed into a transit mall, and the quirky architecture of the former terminals would make for an interesting city center.
On the Connecticut side, they could completely scrap the old Sikorski facilities and build a new terminal with two parallel runways. It has room for one 7400ft runway and a 2nd 6000ft runway, which would allow for more operational flexibility than LaGuardia's existing arrangement. The A321XLR's 4700 nautical mile range and shorter runway requirements, makes it possible for an airport of this size to offer flights to most European airports, as well as all of North America, without any loss in fuel efficiency.
The new Sikorski airport could also offer a high-speed nonstop air train to Penn Station, utilizing the Acela Corridor to keep the trip just under an hour (a 1.5 mile electrified track extension to the airport would be needed to reach the terminal). The new location would also be a lot more convenient for Connecticut's 3+ million suburbanites who currently have to drive through the densest parts of New York City to fly.
I'm thrilled Logan was up there. It's asinine how much land was taken from residents in East Boston to expand it, even more so now
I knew Logan had to be #1 before watching this video.
There is no other airport located as close to a downtown as Boston Logan.
What would you do if you were Robert Moses today and build whatever you want wherever you want?
Logan is awesome, I'd rather have an airport 5 minutes from downtown than an hour away.
@Novusod don't forget San Diego.
FYI, Boston Logan began life as infilled land that used to be a tidal basin in the 1920s. Eminent domain of East Boston (which also happened to be infilled tidal basin) didn't happen until 1970s to expand Logan's terminal E & plane maintenance facilities. But when Login was first created, it was good use of non-usable land.
I would also note that there was strong opposition to the expansion, including by former Boston mayor Kevin White back in the 60s & 70s, and by former Boston mayor Menino, who delayed a further expansion of the 1970's expansion by nearly 30 years, as Massport wanted, back in the 70s to build out Logan even more (only got over ruled in 2003). So it's not like residents & mayors didn't try to prevent the expansion of Logan.
That redevelopment of Stapleton in Denver is F-tier. Mostly single family homes.
They added a 2 block strip of stuff that is just single story units and sea of parking lots.
Big L. I bet if Stapleton closed today that it would look a lot different with the bigger presence of urbanism around.
Edit: Stapleton Airport* for clarification
I’m disappointed with the continued suburbanization of both Stapleton & Lowry, being within city limits. The surrounding neighborhoods are more livable, even as post war subdivisions
I used to live in Lowry until 2018, and yeah, the redevelopment is disappointing.
Lowry has a good number of townhomes however public transit access is lacking. As someone who lives relatively close to Lowry it is pretty easy to get to by bike as it has a decent bike lane connection from several directions. I do love the reuse of the old airforce hangars as commercial space but the housing and transit could've been better. @@ttopero
The neighborhood was renamed anyway. A lot of people still call it Stapleton but we renamed it for good reason ( though Central Park is a terrible name but the residents who lived there got to vote on it so my opinion doesn't really matter ). Mayor Stapleton was a prominent member of the KKK, it was well past time for his name to be removed from institutions in the city of Denver.
@@legatus_newt The huge golf course just south of Lowry is ridiculous waste of space too, it's bigger than the old Lowry site to boot. That golf course and the one that sits at the L where Havana turns into Hampden over by Cherry Creek Dam both need to go. Aside from that the Dayton triangle and southwest Aurora are primarily condos and townhomes with a few residential hi rises around. Aside from that Lowry, Stapleton, Dayton Triangle, SW Aurora are in the SE Denver transit hole, closest rail line is the comically bad R line over at I-225, so it's bus or drive. Stapleton is at least close~ish to the A line which is the best train in Denver
A cool case study of airport relocation would be Munich. They closed down Munich-Riem Airport in 1992 and moved to Frank Josef Strauss airport, which is way off in the countryside. Granted, the old airport was already towards the end of the built up area at the time. But since the 90’s, Munich has replaced the former airport with a huge housing development, an artificial lake, a park, and in classic German fashion, a gigantic convention center. And the whole area is now served by two subway stops which provide access to the city center in 25 mins or so.
Should we forget about Berlin?
Was going to mention Tempelhofer Field in Berlin too but they kept it real and undeveloped as a giant freeform playspace
"nd moved to Frank Josef Strauss airport, which is way off in the countryside. "
Why would you want to do that? Now you added a couple hours to any air journey.
I will concede that Germany is far more dense than the USA, Canada and Australia -- WHICH IS AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY BTW (no one in ancient times said "ok, boys, we can design this city to accommodate cars, or we can design it to accommodate foot and horseback, which shall it be?") so HSR makes a lot more sense there.
But from time to time you need to get to the airport....so I don't see the advantage of deliberately moving it away from where people live.
@@neutrino78x It's not so far away that it adds any meaningful amount of travel time if you're already flying.
The cities in US were built before cars as well, but they were demolished for the cars.
@@falsemcnuggethope
" It's not so far away that it adds any meaningful amount of travel time if you're already flying."
That's probably because like with most European cities the airport was already far away from city.....that doesn't really make your case....
"but they were demolished for the cars."
Nope, not the major ones. You're thinking of small towns that were in the way of freeways.
New York City, for example, was NEVER demolished.
And no, the USA can't replace aviation with HSR, the population centers are simply too far apart.
At the same time, many of these airports are much older and were built at the edge of (or outside of) their respective cities at the time. It was the cities sprawling into these areas that led to some of these airports being "in the city". Some EU airports, like Schipol, are pretty close to their city centers but don't have much development around them because the city remains dense. Even Paris Charles de Gaulle is about the same distance to the city center as O'Hare is to the Loop (~15 miles), but Chicago sprawls into ORD while CDG seems distant from the city.
So the question should be: is the issue the airports themselves, or is the car-dependent sprawl that led to these airports being surrounded by development? I would argue it's both. But we shouldn't be analyzing these airports in a vacuum either. After all, moving an airport to the edge could lead to further suburban sprawl too. Just see how much development there is around Dulles Airport, especially some of the industry and offices near there.
Nobody would dream of redeveloping most of these airports if even 5 over 1s were the default. "Missing middle" 3 story homes are considered densification in Cambridge, MA. If 5 over 1 apartments were the minimum, Greater Boston would fit the entire population of New England, and still keep Logan Airport.
Airports and the business that spring up to support it are job centers of their own and would attract development just by existing.
While this can be a valid question, cities sprawling out is hardly an American problem and airports being in the way is something that can absolutely be addressed. Both Munich and Berlin have closed airports and built new ones further out at some point. Berlin-Tegel is still in progress, Munich-Riem is basically done at this point and it’s an example other cities should take notes from. It’s such a big area, thinking it was nothing but an airport back in the day is kind of difficult to imagine today. And it would have barely made this list, since at 11km from Marienplatz it’s exactly 7mil from the center.
It’s not just about airports. Many cities have in recent years redeveloped train goods yards, industrial sites or freight harbors, because having them so close in wasn’t deemed a good use of space. Cities change, just because something is there today doesn’t mean it has to stay there forever.
Also unless you know that your new airport at the edge of town is going to be a major international hub to multiple airlines, the likelihood of connecting that new airport on the edge of the city to the city centre via high quality transit(light rail or better) is pretty small and it's highly likely that people who use the airport on the outskirt of the city will drive to the airport. A lot of cities, even in North America, are connecting their main, close to the city centre airports, with various forms of rail transit.
Vancouver Airport Skytrain(Light Metro)
Seattle Airport Light Rail(Light Metro)
Portland Airport Light Rail
Dallas Airport Light Rail to Dallas(Light Metro) and Commuter Rail to Fort Worth
San Francisco Airpot BART(Metro system)
Miami Airport Metro Rail to Miami City Centre
Atlanta Airport Metro to Atlanta City Centre
@@eechauch5522 Berlin is not a great example because Tegal and Schönefeld were built in West and East Germany (respectively), which led to Berlin having two airports after reunification (even though it didn't have the population to support both). The new Brandenburg Airport was built across a runway from Schönefeld. So Berlin didn't really build a whole new airport, just a new terminal at one of the existing airports.
And with Munich, looking at the satellite view, most of it was converted to farmland and some offices. Certainly useful, but the planning within Munich and its transit has not led to a sprawling development either.
As others have mentioned, most of these airports were built on the edges of cities and through misguided planning became enveloped by residential growth. In many cases these were Army airfields transferred to the municipalities following the end of WWII. Something else to consider when saying "just move it over here" aside from the costs is terrain id the approach and departure corridors. Just because a runway can be physically located somewhere, even if aligned with the prevailing winds, does not mean terrain will allow approaches and departures under instrument conditions. The flight corridor into and out of an airfield is frequently the determining factor in it's location. This is why airfields are commonly located close to nice flat large bodies of water. Perhaps a better question is why cities have allowed residential growth to encroach on prime airport acreage.
No, a better question is why cities decided to allow so much perfectly good land to be bulldozed for a clearly inferior mode of transportation that treats its customers like shit, pollutes the environment in a whole host of ways, takes up vast areas of land, and only provides a small number of low-wage service jobs in chain restaurants and manual labor. I happen to live next to DCA and frankly, I’d rather live next to a steel mill. Both of them are noisy and pollute the air, but at least the steel mill has a cool industrial vibe and actually meaningfully contributes to the economy.
Had me till the last sentence: "Perhaps a better question is why cities have allowed residential growth to encroach on prime airport acreage."
lolwut... like criticizing all of human history of settlement popping up around rivers, ports, rail hubs, highways, etc. Infrastructure for getting people and goods places naturally attracts people interested in having goods, going places, and working in the jobs created to move those people and goods.
@@michaelimbesi2314 "only provides a small number of low-wage service jobs in chain restaurants and manual labor"
Wont disagree with the generally low pay, but what an absolutely insane take that you think airports employ a small number of people. Just tossing into Google, the AI response notes on average major airports employ 40,000 people. My local airport (MSP) apparently "supports 86,900 jobs" w/ 21,200 directly tied to airport operation (circa 2017).
Having flown into Reagan, definitely a surprising location, but was real nice for a vacation--drove out to Dulles while there for the Air & Space Museum portion there and that was pretty terrible.
Lastly: I think you grossly underestimate the hazardous nature of emissions from a steel mill compared to an airport.
@@michaelimbesi2314if you move right next to an airport you have no right to complain about the noise.
Agree 100%. Private pilot here and former Civil Engineering consultant. Even at my arguably low level of flight experience compared to commercial and transport pilots, you learn that there are a myriad of reasons why airports are where they are, and the argument to “just move them over there,” is much more complex from a flight logistics (approach, departure, instrument procedures) AND engineering perspective (i.e. trying to build on swamps in Florida). Before anyone makes a comment about moving infrastructure, they really need to educate themselves on why something is where it is located, and discover that it’s not some haphazard process.
Logan Airport originally was an Air Force base. The Air Force got booted out to Hanscom in Bedford to make way for commercial flights in the 40s. Logan as an airport just had its centennial birthday, it's that old.
Hanscom has also been mentioned as a replacement for Logan, but thats not going to happen any time soon as there are more lawyers and money in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord than Massport has.
I used to live in Honolulu, a lot of that "prime ocean beach land" by the airport is super polluted by both military and industry. Converting it will be super difficult to use due to those issues.
Not everyone needs to be a shouting influencer, Ray. What I and probably most of the rest of your viewers find compelling is your obvious passion and expertise. Your constant deadpan snark is endlessly entertaining for those of a thoughtful turn of mind, and it has a surprisingly meaningful undertone: It Doesn't Have to Be This Way.
We love you just as you are.
One thing about PHX is that it's located on marginal floodplain, it'd be very difficult to build anything else there due to restrictions based on flooding.
If Tempe can build billions of dollars of projects along the river, sure Phoenix can recover most of the PHX & impacted land?!
Same with DCA
@@ttopero Yeah, I think this was a problem before the army corps of engineers channelized the river in the 1990s.
@@andywhite3103The terminal building areas could be housing towers with green space where the runway is. DCA is the most ridiculous and pointless airport in the US bar none.
@@woodalexander
"DCA is the most ridiculous and pointless airport in the US bar none."
Where would you put it? DC is small. And no, we can't replace aviation with rail.
I'm far more disturbed by the giant golf course adjacent to Waikiki than HNL, personally.
Also wonder how much of the scale of HNL is a consequence of the Naval presence, not just tourism (or historical use for US military that is re-purposed for tourism).
HNL is partly on military land and partly on landfill that 50 years ago used be nothing but ocean. Everything in Honolulu is based on making things convenient for tourism. They just spent 12 billion dollars on new rail line to get locals off the roads so there would be more room for rental cars.
Which giant golf course? The airport is literally flanked by them.
@@selanryn5849 My comment was referring to Ala Wai just across the canal from Waikiki (seen at 4:18 in the video). Given how close in to downtown Honolulu that area is. But - I doubt redevelopment of that course will really solve much with the housing shortage - given the reality of who ends up buying condos in Waikiki.
Airports take up much more land than golf courses, though.
@@fabes89 I can't speak to condo owners, but I lived in Waikiki the entire time I was in Hawaii, and was only making about $50-60k a year at the time. Which is not terrible, of course, but hardly rolling in cash either (and no, I didn't have a giant trust fund or anything of the sort either). There are rentals if you go looking...
Hearing you say the phrase "urbanism pilled" made me way too happy
It was also a good joke, Phoenix and Urbanism Pilled are mutually exclusive concepts. The city is just a sea of suburbs without a city at the center.
woah mogswamp, glad you're just a normal guy too
How about golf courses that squander cities for a video idea? I can think of so many examples in north america, it's horrendous how empty golf courses waste precious real estate and block pedestrian access.
Singapore smartly sited some golf courses near airports, where you can't build very tall buildings anyway, thus you save space
Honolulu: not only is georgraphy of steep mountains challenging, but the airport complex is also a joint military base with navy/air force (Joint Base Pearl harbor-Hickam). All of the last west of runways is the air force / navy base. As it handles long haul and military planes it needs the long runways.
The thing about HNL is that if they did want to move it, there are a couple of potential sites - the former NAS Barbers Point on the southwest corner of Oahu )now known as Kalealoa, used for general aviation), MCAS Kaneohe on the east coast, and Wheeler Army Airfield in the center of the island. I can’t see the military giving up Kaneohe or Wheeler; I’m not sure why Kalealoa isn’t being considered.
It is unbelieveable how bad the ground transport to LGA is. NYC has wonderful subway coverage, but from the upper east side, it takes 15 minutes by car and 90+ minutes by transit to get there.
Generally the best case for building an airport further out is when the one you have can’t expand and isn’t able (or won’t be able) to meet demand. That’s kind of what happened with Denver, I believe.
No. Not just no but hell no. As a pilot, and a person who has been in the aviation industry for 35 years, one thing that drives me crazy is when people build houses right up to the fence because the land is cheap, and then campaign to close the airport. We've already lost too many of our airports, especially the small ones. The only way airports should be allowed to be closed is if a new airport is developed to replace it. Period. I'm with you on just about everything else, but I'm a hard no on this one.
The relocation of the Austin Mueller Airport to Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport is an even better example of reclaiming space in a city than Stapleton. It closed June 22, 1999 and ABIA opened May 23, 1999 ( actually had a trip that left from Mueller and returned to ABIA that summer). The redevelopment of Mueller has been much more in depth that Stapleton.
Yes, but now the city has surrounded even Bergstrom.
@@starventure , what do you mean? Most of the land around ABIA is still undeveloped and the city limits end at the airport for the most part. The biggest "developments" near the airport are Travis County Landfill followed by the Travis County Correctional Complex. Seems like a good use of space compared to right of 5st St in the city center where Mueller was.
Denver Stapleton had a much larger footprint than Austin Mueller as the airport had four runways and was the 6th busiest in the world when it closed. The redevelopment of Stapleton has been the main reason why the city of Denver has increased its population by a few hundred thousand over the last 20 years as the city is completely landlocked by its suburban neighbors. Additionally at the same time Denver also redeveloped the former Lowry Air Force base which was comparable in size to Mueller in Austin. Both cities have taken their time to redevelop both projects to ensure that the redevelopment was done correctly as both are exemplary. Any city in the world who decides to relocate their airport in the future will be examining what Austin and Denver did as both cities set the bar in terms of best practices.
@@gingermany6223 Look at the sat photos again. Development is infilling around the field at a rapid pace and room is running out.
@@starventure AUS still has a lot of free real estate to build-up within its boundaries. More than is even suggested.
What you seem to be missing is that these ports were originally built well outside the city before the suburban sprawl reached them. The answer isn't moving the port, but not letter the sprawl happen in the first place.
Have you considered the fact that many of these airports were initially built far away from the city centre & over time development expanded out towards the airport? Many people who live near airports will lodge all of the complaints that you made about being close to an airport even though the airport was in the area before the housing development. In that case the people who move into a place close to the airport & make complaints about the airport are just like people who move into a place that’s near an arena/stadium and then complain about the arena/stadium.
That was the case with San Jose. The airport was built when San Jose was a small agricultural town and the city then grew all around it. However, at this point nobody who advocated for the airport to be so close to downtown is even alive anymore, the city is a gazillion times bigger, downtowns have gotten way taller, and it's much easier to get to SFO which is a major international hub than before. Is there any point to keeping the airport there? Like yeah I moved here but I moved here because of a job and the neighborhood I moved to just happens to be pretty much the only walkable neighborhood close to work and is in the direct path of the airport. You can scold me for wanting the airport gone out of some weird sense of fairness but who benefits from that?
@@eragonship4929 please watch the documentary “One Six Right.” Airports not only provide a vital service in terms of airline service, but so much more. They provide training, emergency evacuation, “private” flights and so much more revenue for the city than the land alone can provide. Just because it’s easier for you to fly commercially into another airport does not mean that another airport doesn’t fill a much needed service.
Simple: the traffic warrants it. Before Covid SFO was at 100% capacity, and traffic is gradually getting back to that point, so SFO can’t handle the additional traffic if SJC closes. Also, SJC is a good diversion for SFO, which is much more vulnerable to weather.
@@fatviscount6562 don't get me wrong, I love me some 15 daily flights from San Jose to LA but that might just be an issue with our lack of rail options
Guys, I found the United Airlines CEO 👆
I can't really speak to the other cities on your list but I can speak to Phoenix - I'm a native in my 40's and I can tell you that the city grew around the airport. Skyharbor opened in the 1920's and as recently as the 1980's from Phoenix to Tempe (which is the other end of the airport) you had to drive thru undeveloped desert. There is Mesa Gateway that 10 years ago I would have told you was out in the sticks... now its surrounded by homes and businesses with more springing up every day. Chandler Municipal Airport was opened in 1948 - I live in roughly the same radius as it is from downtown chandler - my entire neighborhood was farmland up until the mid 1980's and the neighborhoods around it weren't really developed until the 90's and into the the 2000's.
What I am getting at is that perhaps airports are not wasted space but rather part of the engines that drive development and therefore development happens around the airports. Does that mean that we should constantly tear down and recloate the airports to reclaim their space? If yes, how does that affect the businesses that intentionally locate near the airport... and if they move to follow the airport what then happens to the employees and land use demand for the reclaimed space?
I do think that any continued development here over the next 50 years will start going vertically though, we're starting to run into issues with water and land ownership that will really start to dampen continued outward growth.
I noticed that, too. Having commercial and industrial development near airports seems much better than constantly having to move that. Plus, I'm still waiting to see one city or town in the west build and densify their ways into more affordability, especially closer in like Sky Harbor, former Stapleton in Denver, or former Mueller in ATX (formerly Austin).
Baltimore's BWI completely outside city limits and has the best bathrooms in the US!
I also like it because it is the only Washington/Baltimore airport named for a good human being, Thurgood Marshal.
It also has two different transit options in the MARC and the Light Rail for getting to and from the city. You can also use the MARC to get there from DC!
@@Messiman14and you can use Amtrak to get there from even further away.
@@Messiman14ok be real for a sec. That shuttle to the Marc station is terrible. I’ve missed multiple trains because of the shuttle wait times. Takes 5ever to get to DC from BWI.
@@Messiman14They should connect the metro or light rail to DC's metro from BWI.
Many of these waterfront airports, were built with landfill. If Logan airport was not built the land it’s on would not exist. Also we do have the commuter rail which may not be the fastest shiniest system, but it does work and has a good record of on time performance, and is heavily utilized.
Laguardia kinda built it's self though, It's on a fair bit of 'reclaimed land' made from fill. It started life as a seaplane port. Probably should have bulldozed it, but now it's all renovated and that means it probably wont ever be closed (until it floods)
Relocating airports does not sound easy, but it does happen here and there. I am from Europe, so I am rather aware of examples here. The airport Berlin-Tegel (closed now) in Germany and Heraklion Airport in Greece (scheduled to be closed in 2025) come to mind.
And that brings me to the topic suggestion of looking at any past re-development projects and how they worked out.
Berlin is nit an actual example since Schönefeld Airport was already there so the land acquisition/ environmental impact problems were relatively minor.
The last new major airport before Istanbul was Munich, and that was over a generation ago.
@fatviscount6562 there are other reasons not to cite Berlin Brandenburg as an example of how to relocate an airport. 😂
@@gregory596😂😂😂😂
weird that you mentioned heraklion and not hellinikon airport.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 why is that "weird"?
Have recommended this before and I recognize it'd be a deep dive, but would love a conversation about the role of Greenbelts in limiting urban expansion.
Tons of case studies suggest mixed results and a lot depends on local/regional leadership's willingness to uphold the intent of the Greenbelt, but I think it'd be a great topic.
Love your stuff, man! Keep on keepin' on
Could include a shout out to Greenbelt, Maryland, the only US town created by fiat of the federal government. It was meant to be part of that movement for better or worse. I’ve always wondered what City Nerd would say about FDR’s attempts at urbanism
Greenbelts just cause high housing prices and aren't even really good for the environment. Frequently, development just occurs on the other side of the greenbelt, causing even more traffic and pollution.
@@jessamineprice5803 there were two other towns built as part of FDR's Greenbelt Towns program, those being Green Hills near Cincinnati, OH, and and Greendale, Wisconsin. Then during WW2, there was the mutual ownership defense housing division which built communities near military factories.
@@tonywalters7298 True! I've always been curious how Green Hills and Greendale developed after they were sold off by the government. Greenbelters brag that they have the best preserved of the federal towns. But that whole era was an interesting period for federal involvement in housing.
@@jessamineprice5803 near where I grew up there was a community named Greenmont Village that was part of the mutual defense ownership program, which was a short lived successor program. The community itself consists of single and double unit homes that are still mutually owned to this day, and it also has a local grocery store and a community center
One of the key things that this video fails to address is the history of the airport locations. For example: Las Vegas used to be an isolated airport away from congested areas before suburban sprawl and the expansion of the Las Vegas Strip encroached on it. That’s the common trend for all of these airports, when built they weren’t in the middle of built up areas when they opened.
if a city has a functioning economy, a new airport will swiftly attract an office park, and then another and another, and then there will be neighborhoods built for people who want to live near those offices, and you will soon have the same problem. the fact is, building the airport makes the real estate around it more valuable, and people start to use it.,
I've been an airline pilot for 12 years, and all of these airports are my favorite ones to fly to. I agree 100% that they need to go, but the close in space (and airspace) limited airports are the most fun and rewarding to actually land at. LGA is my favorite airport of all. The views you get are always incredible. It's a nice reward when your coming home from a long trip.
Ahhh, LGA River Visual 13 is also absolutely wonderful as a passenger (sitting on the right side of the cabin)...
One of the best views I ever saw of Manhattan.
It's one of the most rewarding approaches to fly in the whole world. The approach to 22 when your coming from the Korey arrivaval from the south and you go up the hudson at 3000ft is also a killer experience! LGA just rocks. I love the hustle and bustle, the challenge, and all the amazing views.
@@KyrilPG
Harry Reid Airport in Las Vegas is an interesting discussion. As others have pointed out, when it was first constructed it WAS on the edge of the city, and has since been enveloped in sprawl. That being said, there is a plan to build a secondary airport south of Las Vegas near Jean, NV, currently called the Ivanpah Valley airport… however LAS would remain.
Las Vegas is nothing but urban sprawl, calling to get rid of Harry Reid just to develop for more suburban hellscape is asinine.
I think that is one of the arguments in support of brightline west, is that the rail line would allow for reduction in flights from LA-LV and could free up capacity and would be cheaper than building a second airport.
It's amazing how weak the city government has been not being able to stand up to the taxi lobby to allow extention of the monorail to the airport or being able to construct some other form of mass transit to the airport. My feeling is that if some big developer said "Move the airport, I need the land" Harry Reid would soon be gone.
I'd love to see a video where you share your thoughts on slip lanes within cities. I recently moved to a city that uses them everywhere and I hate them - both as a pedestrian AND a driver
we should definitely add slip lanes for planes
Check out Gothenburg, Sweden. The largest city that has achieved 0 traffic fatalities.
Slip lanes allow a road to be crossed in stages and slip lanes provide buses with more favorable geometry. At their core, slip lanes are just a 1 way, 1 lane road that ends in a right turn. The easiest kind of road and the easiest kind of turn, for both driver to drive and for the pedestrian to cross.
Higher turning speeds is a factor in more severe crashes but that can be solved by traffic calming measures like narrowing and speed bumps.
If LaGuardia was removed, Flushing would be heavily densified, resembling more like LIC (same with removing MIA to build supertalls in Downtown and Brickel with height restrictions are lifted). Then again, new airports are going to have to be built outside of major metro areas and will need highways and rail transit to connect them. Then again, you also have places like Philly where it’s small airport is the main airport and building a new one would have to be in Amish Country which will be a NIMBY hell to begin with.
Would be cool if you added what these areas were like when the airports were built. I have to imagine some were much further from the city centers when built and now the city has enveloped them
Miami would go in the Everglades for sure. Such an easy answer.
As a Phoenix local I got a really good chuckle at the idea of moving the air port to Maricopa, so sad that that's where our amtrak station is.
I’m not driving an hour, might aswell go to gateway
You are dead wrong about Boston. It is exactly what is needed for the area. People for miles around can travel the world without driving or paying for long term parking if they choose to.
Frankly, this was a lot less thoughtful than the typical CityNerd video. I have two issues with it, and you already mentioned the first of those concerns yourself: The fact that this "complaint" contradicts your normal thesis; that transportation should be convenient. When I fly into Chicago, I feel lucky if my flight goes into Midway because, even though Midway's facilities are vastly inferior to O'Hare's, I can get where I'm going in the city faster than it takes to just get a shuttle out of O'Hare. Therefore this space is not "wasted", it is serving an important purpose. The second issue I have is that many of these airports were originally built on city outskirts or even far from the city. The fact that the cities grew out to them (including residential neighborhoods) indicates that their presence is not perceived as a waste of good land. So, not your best effort, but even Lou Gehrig struck out on occasion.
Las Vegas Airport pisses me off the most. JUST CONNECT THE MONORAIL
Most traverlers though Miami are international travelers. It's a huge hub for Central and South America. You can't just redirect all of that to Atlanta. It's also a major hub for people taking cruises, which yes, gross.
I think the problem is that people always end up living close to an airport. So you place an airport far outside a city and sooner or later the city has moved to the airport, and then you need to move the airport again.
And once you've removed the airport, there's a good chance that the interests that pushed the city towards that airport disappears and the value of the land plummets making it worthless again - like it was before it was an airport.
That's only true in America really. Major European airports are all outside city limits like Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Frankfurt, Schiphol in Amsterdam, Madrid. There's some development that takes place near it oftentimes due to good transit connection to the rest of the city but in majority of cases the city seems to grow decently evenly in all directions until it engulfs the airport. American cities just grew way too much and are way too large to have airports outside of urban limits
People aren’t drawn to living close to an airport though. Most people aren’t flying very often for work or anything, especially in the digital age. And even then, having good rail connections from the city to the airport would fulfill the need for access.
It’s true that some of these airports were in the middle of nowhere before people started living closer. However, that’s not because they were drawn to the airport. That’s just how suburban sprawl works. Those developments spread out in all directions
@@thedapperdolphin1590People are drawn to jobs. Lots of industry and high paying jobs need to be close to the airport. Every aerospace business in every city is next to its airport and most manufacturing and hardware tech is just outside.
@@thedapperdolphin1590large airports can literally be the biggest employer in that city. Denver international employs 35,000 people, the largest employer in Colorado.
Besides, Europe and Asia build transit infrastructure to airports, which then becomes a catalyst for building places for people to work and live.
I think the moral of the story is to build airports on the edge of cities, zone the land around airports to give a buffer against residential sprawl and ensure there is good mass transit connectivity. In most countries this will require collaboration between local, state and federal governments to get it right. I hope the same mistakes aren't made with Western Sydney's new airport and residential development is kept away
What you propose was done in the 1960s in Miami with dubious results: an unused airport in the middle of the Everglades (Dade-Collier).
For anyone interested in the redevelopment of Paris in the 19th century, might I recommend Esther Da Costa Meyer's book: Dividing Paris: Urban Renewal and Social Inequality, 1852-1870. It's a very recent scholarly treatment of the topic that touches on a lot of issues familiar to the modern urbanist.
The Honolulu Airport shares it's runway with Hickman Air Base and most of that prime oceanfront property is part of Hickman AFB and Pearl Harbor.
I think Brightline does go to Orlando's international airport which has a lot of domestic flights already. Connecting to Atlanta for the airport to go to Miami would probably be a ridiculously long journey. (It's about 660 miles or Going to Heathrow and taking a train to Genoa Italy)
Yeah it's a 10 hour drive from Atlanta to Miami. I'm sure if Brightline extended to ATL, it would still take between 6 and 7 hours to get all the way down south.
It is beyond the distance for viable HSR, Atlanta and Miami.
Brightline goes under parts of Fort Lauderdale's Airport though so it wouldn't be that ridiculous to add a station there. Also Tri-Rail gets really close and sort of has a station but that connection could also be improved.
Should be doable in about 3.5 - 4 hours on an actual high speed train.
It takes longer to drive from Atlanta to Miami than from Atlanta to DC.
DCA is never going to happen because the politicians like having a convenient airport. I've seen Howard Dean and Paul Ryan there. Being from DC, my immediate reaction was OH no, you'll take away the way closer airport than Dulles. However, the housing crunch in Arlington is so bad that converting DCA would be worth it.
How close was Chicago Midway to making this list? I know that it has a relatively small footprint for modern airport standards. Maybe that's what saved it.
I also wondered about Midway, but in addition to being relatively small it's also not super close to what at least I'd think of city center. Looking at Google Maps, the 7 mile "cutoff' from the video "only" gets you to Chinatown. By comparison, Soldier Field and the Sears Tower are both about 8 miles (8.0 and 8.1, respectively). All that's measuring from the nearest corner of MDW, and that's as the crow flies rather than network distance.
Now, if Meigs Field still existed... I'd be *super* curious where *it* would land.
@@EvanED If Meigs still existed, I still don't think it would have made the list. It looks like only major airports were considered. Plus, you could never convert Meigs into anything urbanist -- no housing or anything what was mentioned in the video. A park or nature preserve would be it's only fate.
City of Edmonton used to have an airport, right near downtown. Known as The Municipal Airport. They first shut it down for all commercial flights when they built the International Airport. The only flights allowed were emergency and private owners. Finally after a vote, it was shutdown completely. The land was sold to developers, 4 different companies. Now its being built up with homes that are eco friendly.
San Jose Airport, despite being next to downtown is weirdly difficult to get to without a car. There's currently a study to build a Glydwys pod car autonomous track from the train station, which isnt even in the core of downtown. That whole project is insane but I guess its a solution. The airport stunts the growth of buildings due to its height retrictions. The airplanes fly low directly over the CBD. Not to mention the noise all the way down to Comm hill. Also there's an entire neighborhood just south of the airport bulldozed in the 1960s due to FAA requirements replaced with nothing but open dirt (and lately a city of unhoused). The City's put a of public works money into the airport so its not going anywhere anytime soon, but I agree that one should be considered for relocation. Though the regional airport if Reid Hillview actually has been proposed for closure and redevelopment.
On the flip side, it is one of the few airports that is reasonable to bike to.
Agree completely. I've been wanting to see SJC relocated for years, maybe down to Coyote Valley or just eliminated with improved rail links to SFO and OAK.
That sounds like a Silicon Valley grift.
Topic suggestion: controversy around driverless cars
One thing I've experienced with these intercity airports where the city is built up around them is that you can run into an issue with noise restrictions to where the airport cannot operate 24 hours a day, like in San Diego. We had to stay overnight, but the airport doesn't remain open to the public, so we ended up just sleeping on a table inside the main entrance after having to leave the airport to go find food since none of the restaurants stay open either. I don't mind a far out of the city airport, it just needs to have good transportation to access it.
Due to noise restrictions. After take off from SNA (Santa Ana) the pilots have to throttle back the engines for a few miles until they're over the ocean. Then they continue the climb out.
Needless to say, as a passenger hearing the engine noise suddenly die down and feeling the plane decelerate immediately after take off is a very disconcerting experience.
9:45 If you ever do a piece on how to junk up your rail terminal (looking at you, MBTA/South Station), let me know.
Basically the Kai Tak effect isn't it? Hong Kong both redeveloped the former airport land but maybe more importantly it allowed the area nearby to grow vertically, and we know Hong Kong definitely grew vertically. And on the topic of Asia I remember a couple of the Japanese airports I've been to (Oita and Narita) were _very_ far from the urban centers and I actually liked that separation. Though the other 2two (Fukuoka and Haneda) were more central.
Something else to note is that a number of the waterfront airports are probably filled in land rather than having taken the full area from the city.
The irony is the checkerboard corridor at Kai Tak reverted to parkland after the airport moved and Kowloon was torn down. The old Kowloon walled city site is now a park. Before Kowloon was demolished it took up most of the space in the corridor between the checkerboard and Kai Tak.
Narita and Haneda's reasons for existing are ten fold:
Narita is for low cost travellers
Haneda is for Business people.
As someone from San Diego, san diegos airport is the most limiting to to any city in the country, the airport limits downtown to 500ft height limit, and 300 in midway (recenyly raised to this) and little italy got badly destroyed by the construction of the airport. The whole city is limited by it. Its wild just how badly it affects us
The abrupt transition from Little Italy to airport related warehouses and parking is always to weird to go past, it could have been a huge waterfront continuation of such a vibrant neighborhood in another scenario.
One observation - several of these are coastal airports, or ones that are on rivers. I can imagine that early reasoning for some airports would be to minimize extra flight time and fuel needs for trans oceanic flights. This would have been more of a factor for earlier plane designs than it is now, so our cost/benefit analysis has changed. River adjacent airports also allow planes to fly over water and reduce the noise for the adjacent land use in the regions. The locations on rivers/coastlines also may have necessitated filling in land to create space that had not existed.
Others have mentioned airport approaches, too. It's a lot harder to land -- especially in low visibility from clouds, fog, rain, snow -- if there are hills in the way. So it's long been common to put airports in the middle of flat land, or near large bodies of water.
And of course, a few like LaGuardia are old enough that they were served by flying boats* in the 1920s-40s -- which _needed_ water to be their runways.
* Airplanes whose bottom halves were boatlike hulls, so they could take off and land on water. Using water like this was cheaper than building a runway back in the day. Plus if your plane had a problem mid-flight over the ocean -- a _much_ more likely occurrence in the days of piston-driven propeller engines -- you could land and deal with it if you had to.
San Diego seems to have relatively recently abandoned hope for replacing SAN. They are currently working on renovations and a plan for a rail connection between downtown and the airport is underway.
The rail connection will most likely be a automated rubber tyred light metro line with 2 minute frequencies providing a one seat ride between airport and Downtown!
@@alexhaowenwong6122I hope they instead opt for a steel-wheel based automated train instead of rubber-tire based, solely to leave open the possibility of interoperability with another system in the future. For example, SANDAG's regional plan eventually calls for (what I assume to be) a branch of the purple line into downtown, and it would be wonderful if that could be directly hooked up with the airport line to provide fast frequent trips from all over the city to the airport without a transfer.
I was disappointed the last time I was there that I was the only traveler taking the fast and inexpensive city bus to downtown - it was only airport workers. Good that it's serving them but why don't travelers take the bus? I guess the rail system will help get people out of the "transit is for poor people" mindset.
Orange County really screwed up IMHO, when MCAS El Toro was closed and PUD'd, instead of closing and reclaiming the much more valuable John Wayne property. It would've been a lot more convenient to North County San Diego, taken some of the pressure off of Lindbergh, and allowed for bigger jets. But as always the NIMBYs and nouveau riche decided, just like La Jolla did with the Miramar proposal, to do away with aviation altogether...Now with the advent of roadblock agencies like AQMD and Coastal Management, it is nigh unto impossible to build or even retrofit an airport in SoCal, let alone expand it. The Cross Border Express at Rodriguez Field would be a lot more effective if more US flights were allowed out of Tijuana (and I could throw a rock from the American side and break a windshield in the parking lot at TIJ) but the wallbuilding foamers can be thanked for that not happening...
@@bartphlegar8212 Back in 1954, the Navy, who was in charge of Miramar at the time, offered the base to San Diego for the ridiculously high price of $1 so that the city could move the airport. At the time, Miramar was considered to be too far outside of the city, so the city declined. The Navy then began to make better use of the base, and then, with the realignment of the early 1990s, the base was returned to the Marine Corps to counteract the closing of El Toro and Tustin. By then, the city realized that, ooops, we might want to turn that into a commercial airport after all. Too bad. The city had their chance, and the people who tried in the 2000s to reclaim it were out of luck. The service branches (and federal government) had made too many subsequent decisions based on the use of Miramar. Also, I recall hearing a story that people within the Marine Corps community swore was true: when the Marines took over Miramar again, it was announced that flights would begin on a certain day. Instead, flight ops began the day before, and there were no noise complaints. On the day flights were supposed to begin, no flying took place, and there were overrun with noise complaints. If that story doesn't encompass my 8 years of living in "America's Finest City," I don't know what does. That and the frequent presence of mattresses on the 5. Actually, we still have a copy of a letter written to Congressman Issa (that went viral before going viral was a term) from a gentleman who moved to Fallbrook and was shocked that his peaceful retirement was disturbed by the noise from the helicopters at Pendleton. The guy theorized that they were being used as a taxi service for officers (oh good Lord 🙄) or that perhaps they could be made quieter by either some sort of mufflers⁉or by changing the angle of the rotors (😂). He couldn't fathom what they could be doing flying so much at night, so perhaps all flights could be limited to daytime hours (No, that's when lots of training takes place because in combat, many operations take place at night for obvious reasons). Point is, it amazes me how communities build around airports (and military air bases) and then complain about the noise when these facilities have been in place for decades.
You should do a video on Toronto's Downsview Airport. Its one of the most interesting massive redevelopment projects in a North American city. The site has a super cool history too from being an airfield to a military base to a testing facility for Bombardier aircraft to now a planned mixed use community repurposed from the old runways and hangars. Definitely unique.
I would rather land on a runway that is a little too long as opposed to one that is a little too short.
The amount of airports hogging up huge swaths of waterfront land is depressing.
It's frustrating, but also reasons though. It means there's lots of approaches over water.
The approaches are actually the worst damage to the city, because they're loud and disruptive and can allow only very short buildings. It's why the airport is always in a sea of low density low value development.
Some waterfront airports are also on dredged, flood prone land that's otherwise problematic.
Exceptions exist, that ONLY fail like San Diego, where they seem to still have only land approaches.
Like LAX? (Which despite LA having a subway system, does not even have connectivity to that?)
As an aviation nerd who lives in Boston im really conflicted on the airport because on one hand you’re correct, on another hand it’s the most beautiful airport location in the world and when you’re flying out you get incredible views of the harbor and the city
Fwiw, while Honolulu International is close to the city in absolute terms, I can tell you that growing up there, the airport felt WAY outside the city. And one of its runways is on a manmade “island” out to shore, so it’s sort of using less existing land than it would have otherwise. Now, when it comes to public transportation to the airport 😂, boy that’s a whole worst 10 list of its own.
Good points. With any luck the rail will connect ‘Ewa/Kapolei to the airport in just two years, but of course no one is holding their breath, and it's still a long way from helping the rest of the island.
If you take into account how SD spent MILLIONS extending the blue trolley line to the wrong side of the airport, forcing travellers to take a shuttle, it should easily shoot up to the #1 spot
then entire downtown of San Jose would transform with the removed height restrictions! this would be the greatest change from moving SJC
I live in Mexico City & we had a big airport fiasco for so much time, The AICM airport was supposed to be demolished & be reconstructed to a mixed used area with the now cancelled Texcoco airport plan, I think it would be a good location too be redeveloped because the airport is extremely overused & it’s at least at 99% capacity soo there’s no way to be expanded.
Soo yeah there we go
Did you take into account if the airports were built before the adjacent communities? It’s hard to penalize an airport for existing when it was there first.
So we once had to get a kid from Purchase NY to Manchester NH. OMFG what a mess, an Uber to a train station in CT, a train ride to South Station, a confusing transfer to a bus to Manchester that got held up in Traffic in Lawrence MA. I’m still struggling with what we lost out of the Old Boston and Maine system. When there is a train between Montreal and Boston it DOES NOT go through Concord and Manchester! It goes down the Connecticut river Valley and then cuts east to Boston! You notice I say “when there is” because Amtrak consistently complains of low ridership on that train. Gee, maybe if it served Manchester-Concord you might get some ridership. But what the hell do I know?
The most remarkable overnight airport swap as the closure oh Hong Kong Kai Tak and opening of Chep Lok Kok. Famously, Kai Tak was the most exciting approach in the world with landing between a virtual canyon of high rise building (one of which I lived in). Seriously, it would make a very interesting subject for your channel. Edit: I now live in Japantown San Jose close to the Airport. It is really not annoying and I really like walking to the VTA to ride home. In fact, I would compare SJ to the old Berlin Tegal, a great, compact downtown airport replaced by the 20 years late monstrosity international airport.
A lot these airports started as military airfields built so fighter planes could get up quickly to defend the cities with their associated industrial and transportation assets from enemy bombers. With the end of the World War II and change in aircraft technology (jet fighters vs. piston driven fighters), they were no longer necessary could be cheaply purchased by municipalities. It might well be market forces that will drive conversion of these airports to housing and mixed use - essentially opportunities for real estate developers.
I don't have numbers or anything, but I have to assume Honolulu has a lot of freight/shipping traffic as well due to it's location. I'd put money on it being as big as it needs to be without making drastic cuts to service
one topic id love to see is how to think prospectively about the new 76ers arena here in Philly that is currently being fought over in every corner. we typically look backwards at these projects and see how they messed things up, it would be interesting to look at the proposals, discuss the potential impact and maybe what they are missing or not thinking about prior to the first shovel actually going in the ground. its a big topic of debate here now, and the anti-arena in the city folks are making a lot of good points. but i havent seen a lot of counterpoints or details about the potential positive impact to mass transit (just the major logistical issues with parking for an 18,000 seat arena that might be plopped into chinatown)
I wish you still would have called the airport in Las Vegas actually McCarran
You should check out the Wheeler District in OKC. It was once an airport, now it's a new urbanist development with a fairly walkable character. It's only about 1/4 built-out at this point, but I have high hopes for its future!
Louisville’s airport is one of the closest in to downtown of any city’s. When the airport authority 50 years ago proposed building a new airport in a rural area east of the city, the quite affluent and politically savvy dairy farmers found data showing that jet noise reduced milk production, so the plan was nixed (the existing airport was upgraded and expanded instead). This brought such an increase in noise to three neighborhoods that the city declared them unlivable (technically “blighted”) and moved everyone out.
But the cows still have their quiet and the dairy industry their assets.
Ahhh yes, but did any of the people fighting a new location for Louisville Int'l envision that it would come to be one of the world's largest cargo hubs (UPS)? I wonder if they would change their mind now if they could.
My post probably should have included the UPS angle, because the city declaring the neighborhoods “blighted” was not just from airport expansion, but more specifically because the UPS hub brought planes in every night from about 10 pm through 4 am in 10 or 15 minute intervals, which was far more frequent than the airport had ever had. I mean after midnight, there had historically been 3 or 4 jet flights nightly coming in, but with UPS added, there were that many every 30 or 35 minutes in the late night. My apartment was well away from the airport, but I saw planes coming in so low I could read the plane’s N number from my balcony.
And in the case of Memphis, the city is too low income to really protest which likely factored into why FedEx put the worlds largest air cargo hub there.
@@mrvwbug4423 It may be too low income for the powers that be to _listen to_ the protests, but the city of the famous 1968 sanitation strike that MLK gave his life to support isn't too poor to do protests.
Had this video been made 20 years ago, Edmonton City Centre Airport would have been on this list. However, the city closed it down and is redeveloping the area. Another side effect is that Edmonton has been able to build taller skyscrapers.
Hopefully a high speed train linking the new airport with Las Vegas is included.
City Centre wasn't a major airport, by the 70s all flights had moved to YEG, it was relegated to a museum for the rest of it's life pretty much.
When Pacific Western died, so did the airport, it didn't have a reason to exist, plus it's still 30 minutes from downtown.
stantec tower and the ice district are a very nice addition.
@@josephj6521 High speed rail from Edmonton to Las Vegas?
That airport was very convenient because the international airport is so far away.
I live in the LA Area and I can tell you a terrible decision that was made, the Main one being, that there was a former El Toro Marine base that would have been a much better airport for Orange County and many residents blocked it so now they are stuck with one of or probably the most dangerous airport in the states that can’t handle long haul aircraft so they are stuck traveling 50 miles up to LAX to travel internationally
...and redevelopment of El Toro faces all the same NIMBY problems on top of the enviromental ones, it's still moving at a snail's pace over 30 years after the military base realignment plan was released. I lived in SD when all that went down and I was really disappointed with the lack of leadership there. Usually the voters with the power to sway politicians don't have the best interests of the whole region in mind. El Toro was large enough to accommodate all LAX AND John Wayne traffic combined.
Aren't most airports essentially future Superfund sites?
I’ve often thought that the Phoenix airport could be relocated to Casa Grande so the planes would stop flying over my house.
Putting an airport in the middle of a city when you could have it on the outskirts and accessed by a rail line is almost as absurd as having commuter airports in every city instead of high speed rail corridors in the first place.
Building a city around an existing airport, and then complaining that the airport is the problem is the "absurd" part.
And spare us the pitch for HSR as a replacement for airports. That is even more absurdity.
@@WillmobilePlus Spare us the pitch that airports are a replacement for HSR. A ton of them around the US are redundant, and there is absolutely no benefit to having one downtown when you still have to deal with checking in and going through security for potentially several hours. From personal experience even an airport that is a 10 minute drive from downtown (for example ABQ) that requires me to wait around on a Uber to get to and from is vastly inferior to one that's as much as 40 minutes away by metro line (for example ATL), and both are vastly inferior to just hopping on a train that doesn't require you to go through as strict security, doesn't require you to navigate the entire maze of concourses, gives you more personal space, and actually lets you have a laptop out the whole duration (no turbulence, no takeoff and landing). Sadly these trains almost don't exist so anything that isn't the distance from GA to TX away I'd simply drive to. Still a huge waste of money just as airfare would be, but at least I don't have to deal with hours of check-in and can have some personal space around me while spending every waking moment staring down an asphalt corridor to see if I can get all the way down it without any casualties. For regional inter-city transit trains are the best of both worlds, the only reason commuter airports see such heavy regional use is because there are no other good options.
@@WillmobilePlus You're the only sane person I've seen in this comment section lol Airports being where the metro areas are is a good thing in every possible way. Both the employees and the people who intend to use the airport want the convenience of being near it. No one actually wants to drive out into the middle of nowhere for this. And I say this as someone who wants HSR. It's not ever going to replace airports.
I understand that Logan has expanded... but as an initial location decision, San Diego seems much worse because the orientation isn't taking any advantage of the water. With any airport there will be a dead zone on the approach path. Waterfront, especially fill land like LaGuardia, DC National, and Honolulu thus becomes a good economic location for an airport when the zero-value dead zone is out over the water. Also it's relatively easier to build a landing strip on fill than buildings.
What really jumps out at me is that the non-waterfront featured cities tend to be badly in need of parks.
Was wondering if you could make a video using google earth talking about the sprawl going on in China. There's supposedly over 1 billion empty houses/condos in the country due to over production of housing. The entire landscape of their cities has changed into giant gutless condos and apartments.
Boston's airport is a massive eyesore and Vegas's airport is extremely outdated with absolutely no easy connection to the nearby strip.
This video is simply wrong
BOS and DCA are both prone to flooding, thus perfect places for assets that can relocate temporarily.
LAS is really a perfect place too, located near the final destination for the fast majority of air travelers who should not drive. The problem is the county not building the relatively cheap infrastructure to make the visit car-free.
Locating airport far from the city center promotes sprawl and exceedingly poor land use. Denver was a unique case due to the Army vacating the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Greenfield airports create carbon disasters, not just in the US, the new Istanbul Airport opened without mass transit in place, so that all passengers rely on internal combustion engines for their hour-plus ride to and from the airport. As you pointed out, Stapleton redevelopment is still far from complete after a quarter century, with minuscule amount of affordable housing built. So your own example disproves your thesis.
The land around SJC is actually a local minimum, with adjacent rail yards and brownfield sites. Relocating SHC would triple carbon emissions without actually adding housing, at least in your lifetime.
Yes, LaGuardia could be bulldozed if JFK and EWR are reconfigured like ATL for operational efficiency, which, over time is what ORD is doing. However, all three Port Authority airports are maxed out during prime time using current configuration. Port Authority can also structure fees to encourage reasonable use: British Airways does not need to schedule flights to London every hour, nor Delta one every hour to Atlanta-only for those flights to burn fuel on the taxiways first an hour. Bad government policy forces airlines to Jake idiotic decisions.
The problem is not airports near urban centers. Closing any of the airports on your list won’t add all that many single-family lots. Building more mid-density (3-7 story) housing would make enough room for airports.
SeaTac airport’s environs includes prostitutes, Denny’s, and car park lots. We did this to ourselves.
Disney world is supposed to have a special concrete on the ground that is softer and easier on the feet of its guests. Is that true? If so is it something that could be used on sidewalks in cities? We’re would the best places to use it? Please consider making a video on this topic!!!!!!!!!!
I just knew San Diego would make this list. Unfortunately I don't think the problems can be resolved without the use of high speed rail.
They need to move KSAN to Brown Field and stop bending over for octogenarian real estate magnates.
I see your Miles Davis record on the wall and it makes me think about ways urbanism in cities like New York have allowed for communities of musicians to develop their craft, artists to work together, and styles to merge. Is the intersection of music/arts and urbanism something you've explored? Has there been any research done on this? Would love to know your thoughts. I would ask on your Patreon, but I am a jazz musician in New York myself, and the grind to make rent money is tough enough as it is...
I’ve always been interested in making a doc about how NYC has a trail of ‘Artist Havens’ that started in downtown and the LES in the 70’s/80’s then followed the L train to North/East Williamsburg in the 90s then Bushwick. Sad tale of loft dreams and gentrification in the MFA ghetto. The best an artist can do is find some rent control situation and hang on to it.
"valuable urban acreage" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. NJ homes can be quite cheap right across the Hudson 1 mile from Manhattan, so the opportunity cost claim is also really shaky. Simply building more 5 over 1s on existing streets would absorb the entire real estate demand in the vast majority of American cities.
Berlin, Germany, has a complex and often confounding history relevant to this topic.
I guessed Logan, DCA and LAX. 2 out of three. I guess I’m watching this channel too much.
There have been numerous attempts to try to relocate San Diego's airport. One problem is it would be hard to redevelop that area due to the California Coastal Commission since it's near the water. There are a lot of restrictions for such areas. The only other options were locations farther inland. One was to share MCAS Miramar. The military wasn't having any part of that. Another location was Brown Field at the border, another military or former military airport. This plan would have been a joint airport with Tijuana since it's airport is right across the border. In fact, you can walk across the border into Tijuana's airport and some international travelers do just that because it's cheaper to fly out of TJ. That plan fell through. A third option was to build it in El Centro. That's 115 miles to the east over the mountains in the desert. As you could probably imagine, that went nowhere so SAN is staying put for the foreseeable future.
Taking land from Miramar still seems like a no brainer to me. I don’t see why the Marine Corps can’t just reallocate some land out east or north as a replacement, or just get rid of it. Miramar is a ton of prime land for a larger airport.
Miramar seems to be the only viable place to relocate it to. Building something out in El Centro, sure there is a lot of land, but look how well LA World Airports did trying to make Palmdale an alternative to LAX and BUR
@@goldenstatedepartures Yeah but again, the military wasn't having it.
@@bigfootNPC I agree but the military doesn't. I don't think it's the Marine Corp but the Pentagon itself that is not willing to give up that land. The military only gives up land when they close a base like what happened to Alameda and Treasure Island.
@@ShonnMorris your Brown Field idea makes more sense but that'd require fighting NIMBYs in the city of Chula Vista and relocating a lot of auto dismantling lots. And you'd have to consider the mountains in the east causing navigation problems
DCA isn't going anywhere as long as Congress wants an easy way out of town. In fact, they recently tried to increase service to DCA.
One of the problems with DC in general is that those with the most say in how the city is run have little interest in the actual city.
Logan is an interesting one to look at. They did take a lot of land from East Boston, but also most of it is on landfill in the harbor. So if you took that land away would you just count the original Island? Also massport has a big push to try to get Providence and Manchester to take more air traffic. They're even trying to get Worcester to get some air traffic, but everybody wants to fly out of Logan. For a flights per acreage standpoint, Logan is incredibly efficient. Right now the downtown is mostly just trying to get business people back into the offices with mixed results. Oh and there is an airport in Norwood right off of i-95 that could be used for commercial travel, as if the surrounding towns would ever allow that.
Yeah Logan is incredibly efficient for its size. I'd say they probably handle more flights a day than Detroit, and DTW is way bigger, in terms of acreage, than Logan.
Also Hanscom Field in Bedford could be used more, but there is a lot of opposition in the surrounding area.
@@schalitz1also Logan is one of the main entrypoints into the US for international flights from Europe, many people fly into Boston and transfer to elsewhere in the country from here.
@@BendyDH From my personal experience I'd say it's far less than NYC for example. Logan is my home airport and I fly transatlantic from there often, and most the people I speak to on the flights, somewhere in New England, which had very few flights from Logan is their final destination if not Boston itself.
Noise is the biggest problem. The landing noise extends up to ten miles from the runway. Planes arrive one per minute on both runways here in Minneapolis. I live six miles out but right under one of the two primary patterns. It's gotten much worse then when we bought here in 1985.
I love Sky Harbor, but if you really wanted that land for new development it wouldn't be hard to develop Phoenix-Mesa Gateway into a new main airport for Phoenix. It's only 30 minutes away in Mesa, and it already serves a couple million passengers a year.
Miami, in the 1970s a replacement airport was conceived and they built a 12,000ft runway was built and was supposed to be the new Miami International Airport because of the SST in the Everglades but it canceled due to the cancellation of SST. The runway is still in operation and is used to train instrument(ILS) approaches. Anyone can fly there if you call ahead.