Spatial economic evolution of the airport-centric developments of Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports in South Africa

Among other categories of literature on the relationship between airports and land use, planning models of airport-led development are becoming bandwagons hailed by the proponents as key to the future of cities. While acknowledging the insights of literature, it is argued that concerted focus is required on analysing the spatial economic evolution of airport-centric developments. The aim of this article is to explore the evolution of the airport-centric developments of Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports in South Africa. Through the use of topographical maps, aerial photography and historical literature, the evolution is traced over six decades, namely the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The article discovers that, despite policy and planning efforts, airport-centric developments occur over fairly long time frames. It is also imperative that the planning of airports and surrounds be informed by the integration of, among others, spatial, economic, and transportation planning at different scales.


INTRODUCTION
Across the world, normative planning models of airport-led development are becoming bandwagons hailed by the proponents as key to the future of cities. Notwithstanding the popularity of various models overviewed in Section 2 of this article, there is a lack of literature that analyses the spatial economic evolution of development on airports and surrounds.Such literature is necessary towards, at least in part, contributing to a better understanding of the driving forces of development on airport environs, and ultimately ensuring that planning initiatives on and around airports are appropriately directed.To draw lessons that could be useful for the planning of other airports and surrounds, this article aims to analyse the evolution of the spatial form of the environs of Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports in South Africa.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AIRPORTS
The proposals of the ideal spatial form of airports and surrounds are no new phenomena.Though it is difficult to pinpoint the foundations of such proposals, Meier (1974) had detailed thoughts through the notion of airportbased metropolitan central districts, which develop to facilitate intermetropolitan exchange of freight and passengers.The space requirements for movement by air, together with The author declared no conflict of interest to this title or article.
Dr Masilonyane Mokhele, Department of Town and Regional Planning, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Media City Building, corner of Rua Vasco Da Gama Plain and Heerengracht Street, Foreshore, Cape Town, 8001.Phone: 021 440 2246, Email: <mokhelem@cput.ac.za> the effects of aircraft noise, force the terminal for passengers and high-valued shipments to peripheral sites within a given city.In those locations, hotels, conference facilities, communication facilities and recreational services concentrate to handle the requirements of interfaces between producers and suppliers, parent firms and their subsidiaries, marketers and their distributors, consulting firms and their clients, and so on.Activities assumed to be attracted to such airport-based metropolitan central districts are mainly express transshipment (Meier, 1974: 289-299).
Numerous terms and models are associated with the ideal land-use composition and spatial form of economic activities that locate on and around airports, which, as noted by Schlaack (2010: 115), are promoted by airport authorities, developers and governments as economically and physically integrated initiatives of the airport and urban development.

CAPE TOWN AND OR TAMBO AIRPORT-CENTRIC DEVELOPMENTS
Amidst the different terms and models noted in Section 2, this article uses

Case study of Cape Town and OR Tambo airports
This section provides a brief account on the rationale for the establishment of Cape Town and OR Tambo airports, including the criteria for selecting the location of the two airports.
According to de Freitas (1968: 9), in 1943, the government of South Africa decided on the establishment of three international airports: one to the highest international standards and two to comparatively lower international standards.OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) was opened in 1953, known then as the Jan Smuts Airport, and was envisaged to be of the highest international standards in the country. 2he criteria for selecting its location (among other alternative sites) included good road and rail connections, particularly to the capital city, Pretoria (de Freitas, 1968: 13, 21).
Located in Ekurhuleni municipality, Gauteng province, ORTIA serves the Gauteng city-region, including the country's wealthiest city, Johannesburg, and the administrative capital city, Pretoria.Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) was opened in 1954, known then as the DF Malan Airport. 3 The airport was envisaged to be of lower international standard relative to ORTIA (de Freitas, 1968: 9). 4 CTIA is located in the legislative capital city of Cape Town, Western Cape Province.
As the main passenger airport in the province (with George Airport located over 400km away), CTIA serves the country's second wealthiest city of Cape Town, and it is the gateway to the Cape Town functional region and the broader province.

Research methods
This article is based on a case-study approach, centred on the airportcentric developments of Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports (see Figures 2 and 3 in Section 3).Case-study approach is broadly defined as research in which analyses are undertaken on a phenomenon that is bounded by activity (Leedy & Ormrod, 2010) wherein airport-centric development is a phenomenon defined by virtue of being located in the geographical proximity of airports.This attribute of proximity to airports made a casestudy approach appropriate towards addressing the aim of this article.
The two case studies were selected because, in comparison to other airports in South Africa, they accommodate substantial and diverse concentrations of economic activity, and thus serve as good platforms for analysing the spatial economic evolution of airport-centric developments.
In the case-study selection process, substantial concentration of economic activity was taken to refer to the physical extent of

Data collection
After selecting the case studies, the following two sets of secondary information were sourced towards addressing the aim of the study.First, to trace the evolution of the spatial form of the airport-centric developments of CTIA and ORTIA, historical aerial photography and digital topographical maps (the latter at a scale of 1:50 000) were obtained from the national geospatial information.Secondly, the historical literature on the land-use composition of the cases studied was reviewed to supplement the aerial photography and topographical maps.Historical land use, transportation and environmental information could, unfortunately, not be obtained from the City of Cape Town and Ekurhuleni municipalities.This was particularly due to the fact that the two municipalities previously comprised various municipalities, which were amalgamated into single municipalities after the year 2000.
Hence, the municipal officials are not knowledgeable on the whereabouts of the historical information required.
Based upon the sets of information above, the evolution of the form of the airport-centric developments of CTIA and ORTIA was explored for six decades, namely the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.The adoption and usage of approximately 10-year difference was on the understanding that the timeframe is long enough to allow changes in the spatial form to be recognisable.Focusing on the aforementioned decades, the analysis of the spatial form focused specifically on economic activities of the airports and environs, as opposed to core aviation facilities such as runways and taxiways.

Data analysis and interpretation of findings
The aerial photography and topographical maps were loaded on the geographical information systems (GIS) computer program of Quantum GIS (QGIS), followed by a delineation of indicative study boundaries.Thereafter, an approach used to trace the evolution of the location of economic activities on the maps (that is, within the study boundaries) entailed identifying large buildings on the basis of the extent of land area covered by such buildings.On the aforementioned topographical maps, large buildings typically represent non-residential buildings, with community facilities specifically indicated with symbols such as P (for post office), PS (for police station) and S (for school).Rogerson, 1998;Schuman, 1975;Swanepoel, 2012;Van Zyl, 1981) were used to supplement the 1:50 000 topographical maps.The 5 Though it may appear speculative, this was the best approach given the lack of appropriate historical data.Also, given that the aerial photographs sourced were of poor quality (because they are scans of originals), the approach taken was better than relying solely on the photographs.
literature search was undertaken for two related reasons, namely to get a sense of the nature of activities at a particular period, and to uncover, in part, reasons that would have potentially influenced the location of activities and the change of spatial form of the cases studied.

FINDINGS
Informed by the research methods discussed in Section 4, the current section provides a snapshot of the evolution of the airport-centric developments of OR Tambo and Cape Town airports for the decades of 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

OR Tambo and Cape Town airport-centric developments in 1950-1959
When ORTIA opened in 1952, its environs were already endowed with high accessibility comprising, among others, the national road (N12), regional roads (R21 and R24) leading towards Pretoria to the north, and the Johannesburg/Pretoria-Germiston railway line.Two years after the opening of ORTIA, the airport environs did not have substantial urban development, although urban layouts (and associated road networks) existed west of the airport, at Isando and Spartan (see Figure 3).
As noted in Section 4, it is not sufficient to merely describe the spatial form at a given time, but it is equally important to explore potential reasons for the existence of that form, including the layouts at Isando and Spartan.Swanepoel (2012: 46) indicates that Isando was proclaimed as industrial township back in 1948, and Isando extension 1 proclaimed in 1954.Possibly, the proclamations emanated from attempts by the government to promote the airport environs (and other selected areas of the municipality) as industrial areas.Fair (1956: 22) explains that, in certain areas of the then East Rand (now Ekurhuleni municipality), there was a shortage of land proclaimed for industrial development.Because of the government's concern with the anticipated decline and demise approximately 18 km to the west.However, unlike the ORTIA case studied, the environs of CTIA did not (and still do not) have access to a railway system.Figure 4 shows CTIA and surrounds in 1958, about four years after the opening of the airport.At the time, there was no sign of urban development at the environs of CTIA, as the airport itself was established on a farmland.

OR Tambo and Cape Town airport-centric developments in 1960-1969
In 1961, about nine years after the opening of the airport, the area around ORTIA was still predominantly agricultural and characterised by sparse urban activities.The area to the west (Isando) accommodated agricultural smallholdings in transition towards urban development.CDE (1997: 11) notes that, particularly in the early 1960s, municipalities in the former East Rand continued to promote industrial development by rezoning unused mining and agricultural land, and establishing infrastructure and services for industrial townships.That land, typically situated along main roads and railway lines, was then sold to developers at cheap prices.In this way, the government continued on a business strategy to attract industrial activity for the economy to be sustainable in case gold mining faltered (CDE, 1997: 11).
As regards Cape Town, in 1966, when CTIA had been operational for about 12 years, the area around the airport was still undeveloped.

OR Tambo and Cape Town airport-centric developments in 1970-1979
In of the mining industry, there was a need to identify a secondary industry to replace mining as a driver of the economy.As a result, from before 1948, local authorities, in a way competing with each other, introduced various inducements to attract industrial development to their areas (Fair, 1956: 25). In

OR Tambo and Cape Town airport-centric developments in 1980-1989
In   However, despite the attempts to promote industrial development, the spatial form of the environs of CTIA had not changed much in 1983, about 29 years after the opening of the airport.

OR Tambo and Cape Town airport-centric developments in 1990-1999
In Ekurhuleni, as anticipated, the 1990s experienced a decline in mining and a shift from the natural resource-based industrial development (Rogerson, 2006: 124).
In the same decade, according to CDE (1997: 14), new just-in-time distribution methods resulted in the creation of a distribution hub for logistics companies around ORTIA, including the construction of new warehousing facilities for manufacturing and retail companies.was developed in 2000.At a wider municipal area, Cape Town City Council (1992) notes that Montague Gardens had been the fastest growing industrial area since 1985 and other areas, including Airport Industria, had also grown over the same period.
It is important to observe that, at the time, besides Airport City, which was not yet established to the south of CTIA (see Figure 10), the spatial form was largely similar to the current context (refer to Figure 2 in Section 3).

CONCLUSION
The aim of this article was to analyse the evolution of the spatial form of the environs of Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports in South Africa.The criteria for selecting the location of the two airports (within Cape Town and Gauteng, respectively) included the accessibility of the locations through road-and/or rail-based modes of transport.When the two airports were subsequently established at the highly accessible locations, the environs did not accommodate urban development, as the airports were themselves established on farmlands.
Following the various efforts by the respective municipalities to attract industrial development at the airport environs (including rezoning and/ or servicing of the land in line with planning documents), the OR Tambo airport-centric development emerged significantly in the 1970s, while the spatial form of the environs of Cape Town Airport changed significantly only in the early 1990s.The aforementioned initiatives emanated from changes in the drivers of the economy at the municipal, provincial and national levels.This was particularly evident in the case of Gauteng province wherein manufacturing was identified as a potential driver of the economy in light of the anticipated decline of gold mining.In the 2000s, the spatial form of the cases studied was largely similar to the current context as regards the land area covered by development.To at least in part inform the planning of other airports and surrounds, the following interrelated lessons are, therefore, drawn from the paper: • The development of airport environs occurs over long time frames.• Planning of airports and surrounds should not be considered in isolation of other planning initiatives at the municipal, provincial and national levels.• The success of the implementation of development on and around airports may be influenced by the intra-and intermetropolitan accessibility of the airport environs through different modes of transport.
In light of these lessons, it is imperative that the planning of airport-centric developments be informed by the integration of spatial, economic, and transportation planning, as well as institutional and environmental considerations at different scales.
Figure 3: OR Tambo International Airport and surrounds in 1954 Source: Adapted from Mokhele, 2016: 130 Cape Town, when CTIA opened in 1954, it was situated in an accessible area bounded to the south by the freeway (N2), leading towards Cape Town CBD located that, around that time, there was a new concentration of firms particularly involved in storage, transport, communications and wholesaling along the railway lines, freeways, and close to ORTIA, among other areas.The case studied would have been particularly advantaged in this regard, given that it has access to the railway line and the N12 Freeway.Despite these changes in the concentration of activities, Meadowdale was largely undeveloped, and the urban development in Jet Park was still sparse.While the OR Tambo airport-centric development was developing at a relatively quick pace, the emergence of development on and around CTIA was slow.A mapping exercise undertaken by Schuman (1975), pertaining to the extent of urban development in the broader Cape Town, reflects that the environs of CTIA did not accommodate any urban development in 1974.As shown in Figure 6, towards the end of the decade in 1979, the area around CTIA was still largely undeveloped (see Cape Metropolitan Planning Committee, 1980).

Figure 9
Figure9shows the environs of ORTIA in 2002.At that time, the development had extended to Bartlett, an area to the south of the airport, and Meadowdale was continuing to accommodate more urban activities.The spatial form of the airport-centric development