December 03, 2022 | permalink
My book Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next is more than a decade old but still holds up surprisingly well, despite a pandemic that grounded global air travel for nearly two years. A pair of recent data points jump out: U.S. air traffic has reached 95% of 2019 levels, defying naysayers who claimed business travel (and thus aviation) would never recover in the era of Zoom; and the Saudis taking the logic of the aerotropolis emirate of Dubai to its logical conclusion. From CNN:
As Saudi Arabia continues to develop as a tourist destination, it’s making plans for big things—specifically, one of the world’s biggest airports.
The King Salman International Airport, due to be built in capital Riyadh, will have no fewer than six parallel runways, allowing 185 million passengers to pass through annually by 2050. Built over the current King Khalid International Airport, it will sprawl over a whopping 22 square miles and is due to be designed by starchitects Foster + Partners, who have dubbed it an “aerotropolis.”
Luke Fox, Foster + Partners’ head of studio, said the airport would “reimagine the traditional terminal as a single concourse loop, served by multiple entrances.” The site will include over 4.5 square miles of retail outlets, “residential and recreational facilities,” and logistics space.
Aviation isn’t over yet.
» Folllow me on Twitter.
» Email me.
» See upcoming events.
Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a 2022-2023 urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he leads The Metaverse Metropolis — a new initiative exploring the implications of augmented reality at urban scale. He is also a senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, a senior advisor to Climate Alpha, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative.
December 01, 2023
“The Age of Principled AI” (Video)
November 28, 2023
Fast Company & Curbed: Cars broke Los Angeles. Could a new form of transit fix it?
November 14, 2023
Have Deck, Will Travel: Fall 2023
November 13, 2023
Welcome to the Age of “Principled AI”
----- | August 3, 2023
----- | July 1, 2023
CityLab | June 12, 2023
Augmented Reality Is Coming for Cities
CityLab | April 25, 2023
The Line Is Blurring Between Remote Workers and Tourists
CityLab | December 7, 2021
The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery
Fast Company | June 2021
Why the Great Lakes need to be the center of our climate strategy
Fast Company | March 2020
How to design a smart city that’s built on empowerment–not corporate surveillance
URBAN-X | December 2019
CityLab | December 10, 2018
The State of Play: Connected Mobility in San Francisco, Boston, and Detroit
Harvard Business Review | September 24, 2018
Why Companies Are Creating Their Own Coworking Spaces
CityLab | July 2018
The State of Play: Connected Mobility + U.S. Cities
Medium | May 1, 2017
Fast Company | January 19, 2017
The Collaboration Software That’s Rejuvenating The Young Global Leaders Of Davos
The Guardian | January 13, 2017
What If Uber Kills Public Transport Instead of Cars
Backchannel | January 4, 2017
The Office of the Future Is… an Office
New Cities Foundation | October 2016
Now Arriving: A Connected Mobility Roadmap for Public Transport
Inc. | October 2016
Why Every Business Should Start in a Co-Working Space
Popular Mechanics | May 11, 2016
Can the World’s Worst Traffic Problem Be Solved?
The New Republic | January/February 2016
Fast Company | September 22, 2015
We Spent Two Weeks Wearing Employee Trackers: Here’s What We Learned