Title: Research universities of the future: an 'aerotropolitan' perspective

Authors: Robert Leslie Fisher

Addresses:

Abstract: A large vigorous pool of top scientists, engineers and technology managers will be key to national military and economic strength in the 21st century knowledge economy. Two critical challenges our nation faces - transportation bottlenecks reducing the productivity of busy scientists etc. and a waning pool of white male students on which US graduate schools traditionally have focused their best recruitment and mentoring for advanced educational credentials in science and technology - may become deal-breakers in the coming decades. Cutting the time spent on ground travel of business trips to improve productivity as suggested by John Kasarda's 'aerotropolis' is a promising approach. He says to locate the scientists and their laboratories, etc. at or very close to a hub airport integrated with a planned city. Although necessary, a hugely expensive network of these aerotropolises - which would require a large government investment at a time of political gridlock in the nation's capital - is not likely to be built. Retrofitting older cities with high-speed ground transportation to realise the aerotropolis' most notable advantage might be cheaper and attract political support.

Keywords: global cities; regional cities; aerotropolis; quasi-aerotropolis; effective speed; transport bottlenecks; research universities; hub airports; urban planning; city retrofitting; high-speed transport; ground transport.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2015.069735

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2015 Vol.7 No.2, pp.135 - 150

Published online: 30 May 2015 *

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