airports

The English science fiction novelist J.G. Ballard once wrote, "I suspect that the airport will be the true city of the 21st century. The great airports are already the suburbs of an invisible world capital, a virtual metropolis whose fauborgs are named Heathrow, Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Nagoya, a centripetal city whose population forever circles its notional center, and will never need to gain access to its dark heart." A deliciously prophetic quote, Ballard's words introduce a new book by John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay titled "Aerotropolis." The aerotropolis is a phenomenon we must all familiarize ourselves with, for it is going to become the defining model of urban development in the 21st century. As the economies of the world are increasingly interconnected via flight paths, as the airports of major cities pupate into veritable cities of their own, the aerotropolis, an organism of vitality and controlled chaos, will rise from brick and mortar. Over spring break, many Columbians ventured to faraway climes. These travels almost certainly involved passing through airports and the experience of incredible potential for complete catastrophe. One might forget his identification; be mistaken for a terrorist; go to the wrong terminal; have unsolicited relations with a Republican senator; get food poisoning from a bad sandwich; be swindled for a bottle of lukewarm Dasani; miss his flight; get bumped to the next flight; experience further delays; be selected for additional screening; have unsolicited relations with a TSA agent; be seated in the middle seat next to a wailing baby, a loquacious cat lady, a pontificating ecclesiast, a snorer, a sick person, a sumo wrestler, or a terrorist with bombs in his briefs; have tomato juice spilled on his pants; be trapped in an endless line at immigration; be mistaken for a terrorist again; be interrogated; have his bag lost, stolen, or filled with cocaine; or have jet lag. Any one of these events will ruin a trip. The statistical likelihood suggests that one day, some person will experience all or most of these travesties in a single journey. May we pray for that poor soul. In a world where airports will come to define our cities and anchor them in a newly integrated global economy, the calamities of air travel will become the daily routine for millions. As the futurist Geoff Manaugh reports in his interview with the authors, hosted on Manaugh's own BLDGBLOG, "If Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were to become its own country, its annual workforce and user base would make it 'the twelfth most populous nation on Earth.'" The 12th most populous nation on earth is a sadistic land, dominated by a legitimized Big Brother who seeks to protect us from an alleged onslaught of murderous terrorists. It is a land where the rich and the poor are segregated from the moment the main terminal doors open, where the class system is laid bare and actually denoted by signs. The tyranny of airports has already affected a member of the Columbia community. In mid-January, Columbia researcher Edward Hall was in line to pass through security when he suddenly realized he had forgotten his photo identification. The TSA agent would not allow him to proceed. Hall's solution was heroic and his resolve admirable. He proceeded to sneak behind the ticket counter and ride the luggage belt all the way to the tarmac, where he was eventually arrested. His explanation: "I just wanted to make my flight." As citizens of an aerotropolis, we have been conditioned to see this behavior as roguish and criminal. But Edward Hall is a freedom fighter, one of our own who strove to overcome the maelstrom of economic inequality and political repression that is the modern airport. Airports are a wonderfully poetic allegory for modern living—masses moving in parallel lines, the fortunate in first class marginally better off, but pretty much as miserable as the hoi polloi. Everyone arrives at his final destination weary and wanting, unsure of what lies ahead, but certain that what has passed was less glamorous then hoped. Airports don't just get us from A to B. They show us that both A and B are undesirable places that will never meet expectations. If these cruelly honest complexes are to be the center of our new urban landscapes, we should be wary of the dystopian future ahead. ABC is currently filming a new series titled "Pan Am." A "Mad Men" in the skies, the show hearkens back to the glory days of air travel, a time when minxish flight attendants served generous glasses of Macallan 15, "homeland security" was a Soviet propagandist's favorite slogan, and the idea of an aerotropolis was pure fancy. Maybe it should have stayed that way. Esfandyar Batmanghelidj is a Columbia College first-year. He is a member of the rugby team. C.U. in Hell runs alternate Thursdays.