Future of aviation areas as key parts of globally interesting urban cities

Traditionally airports and aviation areas are viewed as transit hubs and industrial parks serving the flow of people and goods. Due to the rapid acceleration of urbanization in the 21st century, airports have grown to be integral parts of the cities surrounding them. In many cases, this has led to the need of developing new functions and city structure around the airport. The areas surrounding the airport, but not directly serving the aviation industry are considered as aviation areas. Aviation area development has mostly been researched from the perspective of airport development, instead of city development. Often, the focus of today’s aviation area development projects is on maximizing the added value from the aviation industry’s perspective, instead of focusing on creating an urban and high-quality city. The goal of this research is to create a new, more efficient, development framework for integrating aviation areas as an urban part of the city. The foundation of the new model is based on a literature study of the two currently most important theories on aviation area development; Aerotropolis and Airport Urbanism. These models are studied, and the key themes and tools of development are recognized. These models are compared and enriched by modern approaches of urban and real estate development and modern technology-based theories. The goal of the new model is to create a holistic city development-oriented framework for developing aviation areas. The new framework created in this research is a platform-based co-development model. The new framework combines the ideologies and theories of platform-based business models and urban city development. The new model shifts the focus from traditional value chain-thinking into a more modern platform-based ideology. This shift creates added value over the whole development process for all parties involved. The new development framework is focused on three themes that work as guidelines ensuring the quality of the development process outcomes. These themes are; Accessibility, Responsibility and Integration. The goal of the framework is to create a more aligned vision, strategy and goals for the development between the parties involved in the development. The framework also emphasizes the importance of minimizing all negative effects of the development process and keeping the development process transparent throughout the process. If these themes are followed, the developers can minimize the negative attention that large areal development projects often face. The new framework presents a three-phased development process that is applied to the development project. The goal of these three chronological stages is to create a framework that makes sure that the key themes are addressed at the right time and with the right parties during the process. The standardized development process is also transparent for all parties and creates control over the process. The focus of this research is on the development of aviation areas. However, the themes addressed in this research can be applied to all large level development projects. If the framework is applied to other development environments, some adjustments to the basic assumptions need to be made