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America’s Aerotropolis
Chris Kjelgaard reports on the growing importance of the Memphis Aerotropolis to the region’s economic vitality.
he term aerotropolis seems to be in vogue at the moment. Growing numbers of US airports and
regions are introducing the hallowed title in the hope of conjuring economic success, but none can boast the unique interaction of intermodal transport links and dual cargo and passenger hub status that Memphis enjoys and that led Dr John D Kasarda to declare it the best example possible of a true airport city. The concept has become so important to Greater Memphis’ future that the metropolitan area has officially declared itself ‘America’s Aerotropolis’ and made the concept an integral part of the Memphis Fast Forward Initiative, its key economic development master plan. So is this title justified? Absolutely, is the resounding answer from members of the Greater Memphis Aerotropolis Initiative Steering Committee, a cross section of the region’s public, private and academic interests who are taking the concept forward. “We want everybody to know Memphis as much for the aerotropolis as they do for Elvis Presley,” says Larry Cox, president and CEO of Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority (MSCAA). “In the continental US, we’re the only airport with dual hubs, cargo and passenger. We have very good connections, whether you’re a package or a person.” “Memphis truly deserves the right to call itself America’s Aerotropolis,” says Arnold Perl, chairman of the Board of Commissioners of MSCAA and chairman of the aerotropolis committee. “It is the only US community where four transport modes combine and interact in such a major way. Memphis is one of only four US cities to boast five Class 1 railroads.
10 Issue 1, Volume 5 “Secondly, it also represents the United
States’ third largest trucking corridor, lying as it does at the confluence of US Interstate Highways I-40, I-55, I-22 and – in the future – I-69 and I-269,” he explains. Memphis is situated on the shores of the Mississippi River and boasts both the fourth-largest river port in the US and the largest crane operation on the Mississippi – at Presidents Island industrial park, located on a peninsula and island south west of the city. Then there is Memphis International
Airport (MEM), home of FedEx Express and the location of the company’s 16-square-mile SuperHub complex from which scores of large widebody freighters depart day and night to destinations throughout the world, bearing time-sensitive packages. While FedEx isn’t increasing the size of its SuperHub in the immediate future, it is hard at work on redesigning and upgrading the facility’s interior and building a $28 million sorting facility across the road, so the SuperHub can handle far more than the 1.6 million packages a night that it moves now. But MEM is not only the world’s
second-biggest cargo airport in terms of tonnage. It is also a major domestic – and increasingly an international – passenger hub for Delta Air Lines. This makes MEM the only US airport to
boast both a major cargo hub and a sizeable passenger hub, says Cox. Regional airline holding company Pinnacle Airlines, a former Northwest Airlines subsidiary, also has its headquarters at Memphis and is moving into a new building to which Pinnacle will relocate the management staff of subsidiary Colgan Air, now based in Manassas, Virginia.
These runway, road, river and rail
transportation modes – which the GMCC calls ‘the four ‘Rs’ – make Greater Memphis one of America’s most important distribution centres. Indeed, for 25 years until 2006, Memphis officially called itself “America’s Distribution Centre” until it adopted the aerotropolis tag.
The economic impact of FedEx A 2007 University of Memphis study found the overall economic impact of the airport to be $28.6 billion – second in the US only to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, says Perl. Of this, $27.1 billion came from FedEx,
which directly employs between 30,000 and 40,000 in the Memphis area and indirectly accounts for one in every three jobs in Greater Memphis.
So attractive is the presence of the FedEx SuperHub that Moore notes Memphis has become the second largest US manufacturing centre for orthopedic devices, with two of the country’s largest suppliers – Medtronics and Smith & Nephew –
GLOBAL AIRPORT CITIES
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