New Territorial Tendencies. The Airport as a Regional Centrality in a Glocal Context

In the contemporary territorial context, infrastructural networks of mobility and transport have changed social behaviours and urban structures in a relevant way. Air mobility, along with airport infrastructure, is key in the positioning of city-regions in the global network. In this sense, the airport has become, in the last few decades, an urban element capable of structuring the city-region on a local scale.
This research tries to determine the key aspects of this infrastructure and its surrounding territory based on the analysis of ten case studies that are located in different contexts (geographical, territorial-urban and socioeconomic) and linked to airports. This study brings to light the importance and capacity that an airport can have not only in the positioning of the region on a global level but also in the implementation of its local structure.
Moreover, these ten case studies have underscored the qualities that can be implemented in an airport transport hub with the aim of encouraging its evolution towards an airport cluster. Consequently, this new infrastructure acquires the implicit qualities of an urban entity that is identified as an NAC (Neo-tertiary Airport Cluster).