Book Recommendation - Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next

People often ask me what books I am currently reading. While you can always see some of the books I am working through in the right sidebar, I thought this recommendation in particular deserved its own post.

One book I just finished reading was Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next. Authored by a great friend of mine, Greg Lindsay, the book explores the impacts of globalization and its effects on the development of cities and consequently, how all of us, as global travelers, will do business. For the last fifty years, we have lived our lives with airports on the peripheral of the city. New Yorkers like myself abhor and fear the commute to JFK or Laguardia on a busy weekday. In the future, Greg posits that city development will be flipped upside down and airports will become the beating heart of the city, rather than on the periphery.

The book argues that air travel will become increasingly more important in our daily lives. I agree 100%. As capital continues to flow more freely from one geography to the next, investors will rely more and more on "on-site" due diligence rather reading SEC filings or annual reports. Specifically, as emerging markets will most surely grow faster than the domestic economy, and the competition for investment dollars heightens, the best hedge funds and investors will be traveling across the globe, turning over every stone to find the best risk-adjusted returns for their clients. And because of this increased global travel (and investing is only a fraction of the pie), we have to reconsider the "traditional way" cities have evolved and embrace a new paradigm for the 21st century.

I highly, highly recommend "Aerotropolis". It is a fascinating read full of anecdotes and commentary that are eye-opening and will make you rethink the way we will do business throughout the rest of the century.

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