centers, and information technology complexes as well as hotel, conference, and entertainment venues are most frequently visible around major new airports on metropolitan peripheries where there is sufficient land and along the transportation corridors radiating from them. As increasing numbers of aviation-oriented firms and commercial service providers cluster around and outward from airports, the aerotropolis is becoming a major urban destination where air travelers and locals alike work, shop, meet, exchange knowledge, conduct business, eat, sleep, and are entertained, often without going more than 15 minutes from the airport. The outcome is a new form of transit-oriented development centered on runways and along their connecting surface transportation arteries. The aerotropolis is more, though, than clusters and corridors of airport-linked commercial, industrial, and logistics facilities. It also consists of living urban places that must be planned and designed as appealing environmental and social realms. Some aerotropolises have arisen spontaneously, responding to organic market forces with a lack of planning, contributing to sprawl while creating highway congestion, pollution, and other negative externalities. Applying principles of smart urban growth and sustainability are essential to the formation of a successful aerotropolis, as is stakeholder alignment. Governance entities aligning airport management, airport-surrounding communities, and city and regional officials with local business and economic development leaders should implement aerotropolis planning to achieve greater economic efficiencies along with more attractive and sustainable development. Criticisms of the concept A major criticism is the question of whether oil will stay relatively inexpensive and widely available in the future or whether a downturn in global oil production ("peak oil") will adversely affect aviation and thus the aerotropolis. Others have criticized the aerotropolis model for overstating the number and types of goods that travel by air. While many types of high-value goods like electronics tend to be shipped by air, larger, bulkier items like cars and grain do not. Those who point this out suggest that the relationship between seaports, airports, and rail facilities should be studied in more depth. Further criticisms of the aerotropolis include loss of farmland and forests, eviction and/or the exclusion of local residents and communities from the economic benefits of the aerotropolis, and locking in high-carbon infrastructure for decades to come. Social critics argue that the aerotropolis favors the interests of business over that of people and that its mixed-use commercial/residential developments typically lack urban ambience. Some have questioned why people would ever want to live