ABSTRACT
This chapter presents spatial patterns and process of specialization in and around two major European airports: Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and Frankfurt Rhine-Main Airport. The European section of the Airports Council International, taking cues from different studies, considers global accessibility as absolutely essential to businesses making location decisions. An airport is a large-scale, infrastructural facility or a point of interchange within the aviation industry where aircrafts, such as airplanes and helicopters, can take off and touchdown. In recent years Frankfurt Rhine-Main Airport and the premises around the airport have become prime sites for knowledge-based activities. The dynamic real estate and infrastructure developments as well as the increase in letting success have contributed to the circumstance that the airport and its vicinity are considered as prime commercial locations for knowledge-based services as well as conference and exposition sites. Lastly growing inter-relatedness between hub airports, urban development and the knowledge economy certainly can have drawbacks.
