[mywittyname]

This is just another type of arbitrage. Buy up property that's undervalued due to a nuisance, make the property more appealing by resolving the nuisance, then sell the property for a profit.

This isn't fundamentally different from fixing up some old house.

[dsfyu404ed]

Well except that arguably fixing your house screws nobody whereas shutting down a small airport or racetrack screws everyone that formerly used it.

[mywittyname]

Shutting down a nuisance is doing the entire neighborhood a favor, and that land can be repurposed to provide more housing in an area that sorely needs it.

The airports and race tracks were almost certainly built in the middle of nowhere originally. They can relocate some place that's currently a middle of nowhere. Airports and race tracks should exist in areas where land is cheap and abundant, not in places where lots of people want to live.

The land owners make a huge profit from selling the land to developers, current residence see their property values go up, and more people have the opportunity to live closer to work.

Sometimes things have to change for the better.

[xyzzyz]

If people complaining about the nuisance compensate the airport for the cost and the trouble moving somewhere else, then sure, I'm all for it.

[AWildC182]

Or we could zone appropriately for higher density housing to slow the spread of urban sprawl and not have to rebuild our airports every few years because people are incapable of doing basic research on their investments?

[mywittyname]

Who's saying to rebuild these every few years? Most of these small airports are 40+ years old. Cities change a lot over those time periods.

Why not both zone for higher density and get rid of small urban airports? Airports are antithetical to high-density living.

[AWildC182]

Other than causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs?