[gambiting]

I'd assume because there's nowhere with the amount of space required for one, not to mention the complaints you'd have to fight through from every single property nearby that doesn't want to live next to airport.

As a good example - Poland is currently building a new airport literally called "central national airport" with the ambition of it becoming one of the largest European hubs for travel like Frankfurt or Amsterdam, and.... it's being built in the middle of absolute nowhere. People complain about it saying who needs an airport that's not near anything interesting, but at the same time either ignore or don't realize that you couldn't possibly build an airport of that scale if it wasn't in the middle of nowhere.

[ceejayoz]

For anyone curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Communication_Port

I'm not sure I'd consider 15 minutes train to central Warsaw "in the middle of absolute nowhere".

[gambiting]

That's with a high speed train that doesn't yet exist. It's about 40km in straight line from Warsaw Central.

[pc86]

My response to your first point was going to be "that's why you have to build the airport first" which is exactly why your second point is what it is.

It's probably not fair to let a city build up then plop an airport right next to a bunch of houses, marginally increasing their value to a vanishingly small minority of people for whom living near an airport is a plus and cutting it in half for most other people. But this is why eminent domain is also a thing - sometimes you just have to do it. The problem with airports specifically is that you'll get people from miles away who realistically will feel no ill effects complaining about it as well.