Wall Street Journal story of the rise of economic engines based on their proximity to major airports. Pictured below is the South Korean instant city of Songdo, built on what was previously part of a harbour near Seoul's new airport.
"Thanks to the jet engine, Dubai has been able to transform itself from a backwater into a perfectly positioned hub for half of the planet's population. It now has more in common with Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangalore than with Saudi Arabia next door. It is a textbook example of an aerotropolis, which can be narrowly defined as a city planned around its airport or, more broadly, as a city less connected to its land-bound neighbors than to its peers thousands of miles away. The ideal aerotropolis is an amalgam of made-to-order office parks, convention hotels, cargo complexes and even factories, which in some cases line the runways. It is a pure node in a global network whose fast-moving packets are people and goods instead of data. And it is the future of the global city."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703408604576164703521850100.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#