Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Airports as Urban Hubs - Megainfrastructure
Fast Company has a great article about how cities are increasingly being centered on airports, and the importance of air cargo in all aspects of the post-industrial global economy, from moving people to goods to information (FedEx is one of the world's largest air carriers). Probably the biggest takeaway from the article is this factoid:
Kasarda's research has laid bare the invisible plexus of air-cargo networks that have shrunk the globe (much as railroads did for the American West). And his conclusions are expressible as a series of simple numbers: Over the past 30 years, Kasarda will tell you, global GDP has risen 154%, and the value of world trade has grown 355%. But the value of air cargo has climbed an astonishing 1,395%. Today, 40% of the total economic value of all goods produced in the world, barely comprising 1% of the total weight, is shipped by air (and that goes for more than 50% of total U.S. exports, which are valued at $554 billion).
We've spent the year looking at lightweight infrastructure, but as I've blogged here before, we seem to keep butting heads with this parallel counter trend of massively centralized mega-infrastructures. Without UPS, there's no e-commerce. Without United and Delta, no ACM or open source conferences. Without Google, the Internet is a massively distributed mess.
p.s. Interestingly too, it makes me wonder if, in a post 9/11 world, it makes sense to completely separate people and cargo in the air transport system. If there is another 9/11, we don't want this vital piece of the global logistics web to be taken out because people are afraid to get on planes, and the carriers go out of business.