guywhoflies
Y'NO WUT IM SAYIN
The movie One Six Right covers this subject, well airport closures and urban sprawling, with VNY is the focal point. Don’t worry about the loss of tax revenue, because the airport will be bulldozed and built over - it will become a new housing development or a commercial site and they’ll get the tax revenue back one way or another.
SMO will face the same fate, HTO is probably not far behind, same for RHV. At RHV they’re trying to starve the airport of fuel citing environmental concerns, but the loss of aviation commerce benefits who? You’ll find that this is the same formula across the country: A developer wants the land using environmental concerns and or cutting of fuel sales is just the mechanism to close it.
Think of Caddy Shack, Rodney Dangerfield wants the golf course so he can build condos on it.
Fun fact; the only new public airport built since 9/11 is in Panama City, FL (KECP).
Way less fun fact; the reason ECP ended up in the middle of a swamp is because the company, St. Joe, that owned the land all around it, donated it. Their plan was to develop an obscene amount of undisturbed natural land with the airport as the anchor. Luckily, the recession delayed those plans but its only a matter of time before Panama City Beach grows all the way out to the airport. Also, ECP was supposed to have 2 runways, but the recession squashed those plans as well.