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Aerotroplis<br />

Introduction<br />

Airports have become major drivers of economic growth, competitiveness and urban form in <strong>cities</strong> across the<br />

world. An Aerotropolis is an economic development strategy designed to increase the competitiveness and<br />

connectivity of <strong>cities</strong>. In 2000, the director of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Institute of Private<br />

Enterprise put forward the Aerotropolis concept because “airports will shape business location and urban<br />

development in the twenty-first century as much as highways did in the twentieth century, railroads in the<br />

nineteenth and seaports in the eighteenth”. An Aerotroplis is when a city is built around an airport, thereby<br />

connecting time-sensitive suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and business people to distant customers,<br />

clients and marketplaces, and may extend in a radius of 30 km or more from the airport. Examples include Airport<br />

City, Manchester, Detroit Region Aerotropolis, Hubstart Paris, Richtenbacher Inland Port (Columbus, Ohio) and<br />

Atlanta Aerotropolis.<br />

Source: http://www.aerotropolis.com/<br />

The presence of OR Tambo International Airport makes Ekurhuleni well suited to become an Aerotropolis<br />

economy. In 2014, about 90% of the 360 thousand tonnes of air freight handled by South Africa passed through<br />

OR Tambo. Over 60% of the trade flow remains in Western Europe, followed by the Middle East (17%), North<br />

America (9%) and East Asia (6%), with airfreight to the rest of Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and South-<br />

East Asia making up the remainder. Air cargo traffic through the airport is projected to reach 550 thousand<br />

tonnes by 2025.<br />

The Aerotropolis project is one of the flagship projects of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM),<br />

and aims to become the first Aerotropolis in Africa, with OR Tambo International Airport as the nucleus. The<br />

Premier of Gauteng has elevated the Aerotropolis to a Gauteng City-Region-wide initiative because of its<br />

transformative magnitude – it has been extended to cover Lanseria airport in Johannesburg and Wonderboom<br />

airport in Tshwane (GPG, 2015).<br />

330 State of South African Cities Report 2016

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