he Western Sydney Aerotropolis is a multi-billion-dollar development that aspires to be the third-largest economic centre in Australia by 2036, ten years after the airport it’s centred on is set to open. A range of high-powered global Fortune 500 companies have already signed up as Foundation Partners with the New South Wales state government to contribute to and be part of the development. Defence, manufacturing and tech companies such as Northrop Grumman, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Siemens and Hitachi are vying to build centres and facilities developing data analytics, advanced manufacturing, intensive agriculture, artificial intelligence and other technologies that will underpin the aerotropolis’s smart city and sustainability credentials. Likewise, public institutions such as the CSIRO, the Australian Space Agency and a consortium of Australian universities aim to make this a “knowledge” or “innovation” district. The aerotropolis promises to tip the scales of opportunity a little more toward Sydney’s typically disadvantaged western edge. However, the new city will have to deliver not just for the locals, but globally, if the new economy is to attract the kind of highly mobile,
