When we think about how cities grow and evolve, we often overlook a key to that growth: airports.
Without a well-designed airport, it becomes a lot harder to haul cargo and people to a city.
Las Vegas, with its more than 40 million visitors a year, is no exception.
Tuesday at UNLV, professor Dan Bubb will talk about how airports and the airlines that serve them play central roles in shaping cities, especially those in the American West.
Bubb said he became enamored with airports and aviation from a young age, taking trips across the country to visit family.
"But the thing that I noticed is that a lot of people don't pay attention to airports," he told KNPR's State of Nevada. "They're just facilities that exist. But they actually play a very critical role in urban growth and development, and urban planning, and so the talk I'm going to be giving is going to bring this out -- the critical role that airports play."
Bubb said airports are vital not only in transporting people from one place to another, but in moving cargo as well. He said, in the past, cargo pilots threatened to not fly at Los Angeles International Airport because the layout of the facility was too confusing for them. Because of the airport's traffic, and the potential loss of revenue that would take place if the cargo planes did not stop at LAX, the airport was forced to undergo changes to be more accommodating.
Airports can also play roles in local political decision making, Bubb said.
"The airlines and the airport here in Las Vegas have a direct and indirect economic impact of $30 billion on Southern Nevada's economy," he explained. "I took the ten biggest airports in the American West, and added up their economic impacts, and they total over $500 billion. The air travel industry itself is a $2.2 trillion industry. In essence, it's become the lifeblood of many cities, of many economies. Airports play a really critical role in this, so politically they have to be very sensitive to residents."
Bubb said the airports of the future will need to adapt in certain ways to attract international consumers. He said airports like McCarran International Airport have made their customs lines smaller to help move newly arriving passengers through the airport more quickly, and other airports have diversified their food offerings in terminals to cater to foreign travelers.
(Editor's note: This story originally ran in December 2015)
Dan Bubb, assistant professor in residence, UNLV
