The Gauteng city of Ekurhuleni plans to finalise its 30-year aerotropolis master plan during May, having adopted the concept as part of its Growth and Development Strategy 2055 last year.

The project has also been incorporated as part of a larger national strategic infrastructure project – Sip 2, or the Durban-Free State-Gauteng logistics and industrial corridor – being overseen by the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee.

Executive Mayor Mondli Gungubele says the master plan, which is being overseen by Jack van der Merwe, who previously drove the Gautrain project, will seek to consolidate the metropolitan area’s status as ‘the workshop of Africa’.

The city, which has a population of three-million, is already home to 41 000 industrial enterprises, with manufacturing contributing nearly 30% of its gross domestic product and accounting for around 155 000 jobs.

Using the aerotropolis concept, the aspiration is to leverage the city’s two major existing assets, the OR Tambo International Airport and its industrial capacity, to stimulate growth, investment and job creation.

The plan is to more fully integrate the city’s future development with Africa’s biggest freight and passenger airport, which is owned and operated by the Airports Company South Africa. In 2012, the airport facilitated the transport of 19-million passengers and 300 000 t of freight through 212 000 flights.

The plan has been praised by University of North Carolina Center for Air Commerce director Professor John Kasarda, who says that there are more than 80 airport cities either operational or under development internationally, as cities seek to take greater advantage of their airport assets.

PHYSICAL INTERNET

Kasarda acknowledges that many of these airport cities have evolved organically, but argues that planning and coordination helps ensure greater socioeconomic spin-offs.

Airports, he says, have increasingly evolved into the “routers” in an increasingly high-speed “physical Internet” that ensures the “global meets the local”.

“Airports have become as much destinations as places for departure,” he enthuses, adding that they are increasingly being perceived as regional and national assets that, if properly planned, can promote business efficiency, competitiveness and investment.

For Ekurhuleni, the initial focus will be on extracting greater synergies between the airport and the existing industrial nodes of Pomona, Isando and Aeroport, while opening the way for greenfield development opportunities in the north-eastern “urban edge”.

“The amendment of the urban edge will immediately open about 15 to 20 km2 of developable land, much needed for development consistent with the aerotropolis programme,” Gungubele enthuses.