Airports in Cities and Regions - KIT Scientific Publishing

Airport-region governance
procedures have not been able to cope with. The forms of negotiation and the
temporal horizon of the planning procedures are put into question. The conflicts
arising around the airport can also be seen as a conflict between groups who see
themselves as excluded from the benefits of globalization, but receiving its negative
externalities, and those participating in and welcoming the development (Kesselring,
2007).
Additionally the functional diversification of airports enlarges the scope of
regulation and puts further questions onto the applicability of the instruments.
Privatized airports as the obtainers of the national interest “accessibility by air” are
altering into highly diversified firms with strong real-estate departments. Thus they
become actors in a different field than actually perceived by politicians and society.
The conventional procedures seem incapable to develop a satisfying approach to this
new complexity. Considerations regarding the regulation and governance of the
“new airport” have to be accompanied by thoroughly elaborated analyses of the
governance structures.
Regardless of this, airports are still viewed in a rather sectoral way, the approval
procedures are mainly based on its infrastructural function. The impact on the
surrounding is focused on negative externalities opposed to the positive economic
effects. If we consider the studies done by the Airport Region Conference (Berthon
and Brigand 2001) we see a process of change here, in the sense that planners are
reflecting on the transformation of the airport. However the question how to deal
with the airport in an urban planning context remains open. This mainly emanates
from two aspects: the logic of the technical system air-traffic and the conundrum of
regional planning implementation.
2 Airports as components of large technical systems
Following the arguments of Hughes and Mayntz, air-traffic can be understood as a
large technical system or a societal subsystem. These are characterised by an own
institutional framework, their own knowledge base, as well as norms and standards
(Hughes, 1987, Hughes/Mayntz 1988, Mayntz 1995 and Mayntz, 2009). The
hypothesis is for Mayntz that these systems and the societies they are connected with
show congruence in their evolution. Large technical systems (LTS) are especially
characterised by their physical presence. Whether electricity, water supplies or
transport: the LTS forms physical representations in the presence of nodes and
networks. Airports can therefore be understood as physical components of the LTS
air traffic. Their importance for nation building in a spatial sense of
infrastructuralisation is reflected in the approval process.
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