Lots of cities have airports in the heart of the city and most do not recognize them as major assets. Kansas City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Berlin Tegel to name a few.
Your choice of cities is amusing.
Detroit for instance. What's the point of having any airport if most of your citizens have already fled?
As for Kansas City, it had two downtown airports essentially abutting one another and they shut one down, Fairfax Airport in '85. The remaining facility, Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, is thriving and expanding. From its facebook page one reads, “In the shadows of the downtown skyline, up to 700 aircraft per day take off or land at the airport - everything from single-engine propeller craft to sleek corporate jets.†So if Kansas City is your standard, then its open doors for corporate jets at Billy Bishop!!
Now onto Cleveland's Burke Airport. From its homepage, under the title, “Moving Forwardâ€
“Since its inception in 1947, Burke Lakefront Airport has become a cornerstone of Northeast Ohio’s transportation system and continues to have tremendous potential as an economic engine for the City of Cleveland.
In order to further stimulate Burke’s growth and vitality, the airport has developed an improvement plan. Over the next five years, the airport will:
Increase main runway capacity and safety to:
Put Burke in compliance with current FAA regulations
Allow larger aircraft to safely utilize the airport
Attract and accommodate larger charter services and jets
Increase door-to-door cargo delivery business opportunitiesâ€
Doesn't sound like they are shutting down anytime soon.
Berlin's Tegel is not a major asset? Are you a comedian? Not only is it a critical part of their infrastructure, they are building a bigger and better replacement, the new Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport. Where do you propose to build a bigger and better replacement for Billy Bishop?
As for Chicago, Meigs field was shut down by Daley at the height of his power not as the culmination of some open democratic process but by a secret midnight assault led by the police that he personally ordered without any notice stranding dozens of planes as bulldozers carved up the runway in the middle of the night. Chicago had to pay significant penalties for his malfeasance. Are you a fan of mini-dictators?
In addition Chicago is served by two major airports and has considered adding a third airport over the past years. Moreover Midway, some 8 miles from the Loop, is surrounded on all sides by tens of thousands of residents, the closest homes being some 640 feet from the start of runway 31R at Midway. In comparison Billy Bishop is mostly surrounded by water with the closest residents on Stadium Rd being twice the distance as Midway's, some 1274 feet from the start of runway 15 at YTZ, a minor runway which the Porter jets would not use I might add.
Rather then seeing Midway as as economic deadweight, Emanuel wants to turn it into a cash cow for the city by privatizing it.
Furthermore, lamenting the loss of a downtown airport Chicago is planning to open next year a large heliport downtown to facilitate access to the core with hanger space for 60 helicopters. Where in Toronto's downtown core do you think we should place our heliport?
In fact a proper comparable would be something like LCY which far from closing down, the City of London, recognizing its immense value to the city's residents and business community, plans on expanding to accommodate some 8 million passengers a year.
In the case of NYC, a city with many airports and heliports, LaGuardia is only 3 miles from Manhattan and 4.9 miles from the start of runway 4 to Grand Central Station. I don't see anyone calling on shutting down LaGuardia or any other airports in the region. They are considered to be vital infrastructure. Indeed most are contemplating what expansions/improvements would be needed to support a growing vibrant economy.
I strongly suspect that in a survey of economists the vast majority would support the claim that Billy Bishop is a significant asset for Toronto giving Toronto a tremendous advantage when competing against other cities with its proximity to the downtown core, and its growth would contribute significantly to Toronto’s economic growth, which would benefit all its residents.