Overview

Thirty years ago, few residents of Asian cities had ever been on a plane, much less outside their home countries. Today, flying, and flying abroad, is commonplace. How has this leap in cross-border mobility affected the design and use of such cities? And how is it accelerating broader socioeconomic and political changes in Asian societies?In ""Airport Urbanism, "" Max Hirsh undertakes an unprecedented study of airport infrastructure in five Asian cities Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. Through this lens he examines the exponential increase in international air traffic and its implications for the planning and design of the contemporary city. By investigating the low-cost, informal, and transborder transport systems used by new members of the flying public such as migrant workers, retirees, and Asia s emerging middle class he uncovers an architecture of incipient global mobility that has been inconspicuously inserted into places not typically associated with the infrastructure of international air travel.Drawing on material gathered in restricted zones of airports and border control facilities, Hirsh provides a fascinating, up-close view of the mechanics of cross-border mobility. Moreover, his personal experience of growing up and living on three continents inflects his analyses with unique insight into the practicalities of international migration and into the mindset of people on the move.""

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Reviews

Airport Urbanism dissects issues in infrastructural design and aesthetics, physical mobility and social immobility, and the lived experiences of an emerging Asian urbanism a remarkable achievement by a scholar who possesses the intellectual virtuosity to bridge realms in every direction. Helen F. Siu, Yale University Lucid and entertaining, Max Hirsh s account of airport infrastructure shatters the fiction of showpiece airports as the acme of international air travel. This highly perceptive reading of cross-border mobility and its role in shaping the urban landscape in Asia is a critical contribution to the emerging scholarship on infrastructure. Swati Chattopadhyay, University of California, Santa Barbara

A fascinating examination of the many elements, and the countless ways in which societies have grown an infrastructure of air travel parallel to any intended arrangements, and well outside any comprehensive plans. --Urban Land Magazine A fascinating, well-documented story of a world in transition. --CHOICE [Airport Urbanism's] perceptive and extensive empirical analysis will certainly be of value not only to scholars of East and Southeast Asian cities but also to those who intervene directly in their planning and development. --Urban Studies

""Airport Urbanism dissects issues in infrastructural design and aesthetics, physical mobility and social immobility, and the lived experiences of an emerging Asian urbanism—a remarkable achievement by a scholar who possesses the intellectual virtuosity to bridge realms in every direction.""—Helen F. Siu, Yale University ""Lucid and entertaining, Max Hirsh’s account of airport infrastructure shatters the fiction of showpiece airports as the acme of international air travel. This highly perceptive reading of cross-border mobility and its role in shaping the urban landscape in Asia is a critical contribution to the emerging scholarship on infrastructure.""—Swati Chattopadhyay, University of California, Santa Barbara ""A fascinating examination of the many elements, and the countless ways in which societies have grown an infrastructure of air travel parallel to any intended arrangements, and well outside any comprehensive plans.""—Urban Land Magazine ""A fascinating, well-documented story of a world in transition.""—CHOICE ""Airport Urbanism’s perceptive and extensive empirical analysis will certainly be of value not only to scholars of East and Southeast Asian cities but also to those who intervene directly in their planning and development.""—Urban Studies ""Airport Urbanism offers an innovative (re)reading of contemporary cities through the lens of the airport."" —Pacific Affairs

Author Information

Max Hirsh is a research assistant professor at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong.

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