Hello. In this video I talk about the link between air transport and metropolization or more specifically the impact of low cost carriers and the airports they use on the transformation of the territories. This presentation is the result of a research work, underway at the Catholic University of Leuven, led by Mario Cicolecchia, on the impact of low cost airlines on the transformation of urban territories. It will question the potential of an airport, as a integral urban element, and not as a simple transport equipment. Is it possible to think the airport as a new centrality of urban production? What would be its characteristics and dynamics? These issues are among those raised by the research. To enter to the subject, we propose to illustrate, by quotations, the vision which today focuses on airports. These are not anymore simple equipment associated with travel and mobility, but have become key elements in the developments of territories. John Urry explains with an example that the passage of airports from monomodality to the multimodality, accompanied by multifunctionality, made the airport one of the key elements of globalization. Robertson, meanwhile, explains by the term "glocalization" that the airport is the meeting point or the articulation between global forces and local forces. Castels explains that airports have become vital elements of space and of global flows on which the globalized economy of today is based. Sudjic says that airports have become, along museums or shopping malls, public spaces of contemporary cities. Finally, says Short that airports are not only nodes of the global network, but are places of great local environmental impact exacerbating tensions between the requirements of the international connectivity and the needs to live locally. All these definitions illustrates the convergence of ideas on what the airports represent today and on their importance in urban strategies. However, these visions are brought mainly by sociologists, and not by architects or urban planners. So there is very little work that predict the urban development dynamics that are airport-related and that would help to act better on the local and regional area. Indeed, in the scientific literature, the study of airports in connection with the urbane is little present. Technical literature is essentially found, in terms of architecture, or how to build airports. These have long been considered as isolated objects, anti-urban and connected to the city only by transport infrastructure. It was not until 1980 that we started thinking the airport as an urban object, able to influence and change its environment locally, while being a fundamental element of metropolisation processes. This new way of thinking the airport generated a series of concepts which attempts to define the link from the airport to the city and the urban. We find for example : and others. We cannot explain here all the concepts but we offer to resume six models to try to describe opportunities for city growth from the influence of an airport, or in other words, to describe forms of airport metropolisation. The first model is the "AIRFRONT" model. At the economic level, it is a kind of "business district" based mainly on commercial and industrial activities related to transportation. Spatially, it is a small concentration localized between the city and the airport. It is a model which is little consumer of land because it often develops in places of existing economic activities that it will strengthen. At the social level, there are certain advantages that are associated with the development of economic activity and hence the supply of jobs in the region. In terms of governance, this model involves the creation of a spatial plan which often involves public or private partnerships. The second model is the "DECOPLEX" (Development Ecology Complex) it involves developing a small industrial complex, economical and linear, based on airport activity. The activities we will find there will be transporting people and goods aviation operations and maintenance, etc. Like its predecessor, this model is little consumer of land, it develops a kind of aeropole which focuses not only transportation, but a series of satellite activities. This model has very little social impact because they are often offshored activities groups. In terms of governance, there is very little impact of public authorities because this model is often handled by airport actors and private actors. Thus, it has very little impact on the city and on the socioeconomic development of the concerned territory. The third model is the "AIRPORT CITY". This is somehow an extension of the previous model, with the difference that the activity revolving around the airport is no longer exclusively linked. We can come by economic parks leisure parks, banks, sports centers, training centers and others. Spatially, it is a model that extends around the airport, while remaining compact and dense. At the social level, with this type of model, there is a rupture of dynamics as the airport becomes an element of competition with the city. It includes all services and equipments that is normally found in the city. Sometimes even there we find a residential component that often develops so competitively compared to what is done in the city. In terms of governance, it is the airport that plans and develops the territory. The fourth model is the "AIRPORT CORRIDOR." This model matches that of current dynamics between the city of Amsterdam and its airport. Unlike the previous model, where there is a break between the city and the airport, here, there is an integration attempt. The connection between the city and the airport is no longer a simple linear infrastructure but an urban development done in several activities and functions. It is an attempt of coordination between the airport, the city and the region for the overall growth of the region. To achieve this, it is necessary to have a governance coordinating between the public actors, the airport actors and private economic actors. The fifth model is the "AIREA". It corresponds to that of Berlin Brandenburg Airport. There is here also an attempted valorization of the region, by balancing the forces of the city and those of the airport. The model offers the development of multiple nodes or specialized economic centers, which are connected between them on the one hand, and to the airport and the city on the other. Spatially, it is a polycentric system, like the modern "zonings" where mobility and availability of transport infrastructure are the basic conditions of its operation. The region and the public authorities are highly active in the planning and ensure to respond not only to objectives of international economic development, but also to meet local social needs. Governance is also mixed and involves all stakeholders. This model was created to avoid the development of airport megacities that we will explore in the sixth and final model. The last model is "AEROTROPOLIS". This is an extreme model, inspired from the growth of US cities. The airport becomes the center of a new city. The old town is only a part of this new city. The latter is organized in specialized zonings and without much diversity. This model uses a lot of land, due to its spread and low density. It is based only on economic development as the main engine. Aspects of quality of life, heritage, or otherwise, are relegated to the background. This type of model poses a series of problems in terms of governance because it encompasses different administrative courts, a variety of actors and areas that have developed spontaneously. It involves a complexity of coordination for the overall territorial development. These six models allow us to have a reading grid to analyze current urban developments around airports, including low cost airports that develop in Europe today. The dynamic development of these appeared in a very short time, leaving the authorities without management tools of this type of dynamics. Before the arrival of low cost airlines air transport grew following the pattern "Hub & amp; Spoke ". Ie. a regional airport is connected only with a principal national airport, which is connected with other major airports, national and of other countries. Therefore, two regional airports could only be connected through the main airports. This type of model has generated a very technical collaboration between airport as an infrastructure and traditional national airlines. It's a dynamic that has consolidated over time, based solely on air transport. With the emergence of low cost airlines, the model changes to the "Point to Point". This means that any regional airport can be connected with any other without going through a central hub. In this configuration, new partnerships appear as low-cost airlines are no longer seen only as a means of transport, but as a means to develop the peripheral regions. Thus, public authorities in regions with airports will appeal to airlines such as Ryanair, for example, by offering various facilities, to help them develop their territory. These airlines are seen as accessibility generators and as a new resource on which to develop policies both urban and territorial. Let us now take a concrete case, that of Wallonia, Belgium. We find two airports: that of Liege, dedicated exclusively to freight transport, and of Charleroi, dedicated to transporting people with low-cost airlines, including Ryanair. We can see on the left chart the increase in air traffic at the Charleroi airport since the arrival of Ryanair in 1998. Charleroi Airport is certainly a peripheral airport compared to that of Brussels, Zaventem, but it has an advantage of a strategic location. It is at the crossroads of the highway that connects Charleroi to Brussels all the way to Antwerp and the Netherlands, and of the highway which connects Paris to Cologne, via Namur and Liège. To understand the dynamics of Charleroi airport, it is important to understand the actor games that revolve around him. First we find the Walloon region that put airports available to private managers through concessions and contracts for decades. Its goal was to revitalize this part of the region, economically, and increase its attractivity. Then we find the management company, BSCA (Brussels South Charleroi Airport) which is mainly air traffic and commercial activity, within the terminal only. We also find SOWAER, (Walloon Airport Company) whose shareholders are mainly the Walloon region, as well as some private shareholders. SOWAER support spaces around the airport, developing economic strategies on one hand, and airport integration strategies with the city on the other. The other major player is the city of Charleroi. The latter has created, with 68 other cities, an inter-municipal company for the management and implementation of economic and technical studies: IGRETEC. Its goal, in the case of Charleroi, is to define strategies for the cities located around the airport in order to benefit from its infrastructure. The acting game of the development of Charleroi airport and its territory thus fall around a triangulation between Brussels South Charleroi Airport, SOWAER and IGRETEC. In this little layout, one can see the occupied areas for each player in the perimeter of the airport. In this satellite image, the white line represents the limits of the airport of Charleroi. The areas in orange and red are areas that are being developed and are considered strategic. One of the strategic options of the region is achieving a railway station in the terminal to quickly and directly connect the city of Brussels to Charleroi airport without having to change mode of transport at the Charleroi station. The desire is to make Charleroi Airport the Brussels South Airport. With this station project, one would go, considering all the stops, from the Charleroi airport to the center of Brussels, in a similar time budget than the current movement from the Brussels Zaventem Airport to the center of Brussels. SOWAER is currently developing a strategy to support airports by making financial resources available, on the one hand, but it will mainly develop a proactive policy of creation of land reserves. Through redemption mechanisms or expropriation, it will acquire land, which it will provide for the economic development of the airport. During the past three years, SOWAER created roughly thirty hectares to spend on the economic development of the airport. It is a policy that does not take into account other dynamics of the territory and its inhabitants. The choice of these policies are justified by the promise of creating jobs for Wallonia. The idea is to make economic profits of the airport activity creating potential for development where there was none. In these images we can see how IGRETEC plans to use its land reserves. This is the project of one of the two economic parks IGRETEC proposed for municipalities around the airport. It is divided into five sectors which are: Life Sciences; Aerospace; Graphic Arts; Business Services and Technology Industry. The problem is that there is a lack of integration of these "clusters" of activity in the city. The residential function is absent and there was no thorough analysis of the urban territory. It lacks an overall vision of integration as in many regional airports because, as we mentioned earlier, growth generated by these airports was very quick and unexpected. Municipalities have improvised without mastery of dynamics. There has not been, in the case of Charleroi, willingness to develop a new image of the city, relying on the growth of its airport. On these two images, one can see the second business park proposed by IGRETEC, which proposes to transform urban spaces into economic parks based on research and scientific training. It is understandable in the case of Charleroi that we are in models of the type of development, "AIRPORT CITY" with the only difference that we are in a joint governance where governments still have an important role. In this video, we could see what impact an airport, and particularly a low cost airport, can have on the territory and its metropolisation processes. It is clear that it is important to think of the airport, not as a single transport infrastructure separate from the city, but as a dynamic urban generator equipment. This implies the need to plan the airport's dynamic in line with those of the city, trying to converge public policy and local interest with economic policies of the airport and of the private operators. One of the shortcomings of Charleroi Airport is exactly the lack of integration channels of all stakeholders, including inhabitants, in the exchanges and definition of the strategies. Finally, the cities involved in this type of airport need to move from a management and a local development strategy to supra-local strategies for which they may not have the necessary tools.
