John D. Kasarda


John D. Kasarda is an American academic and airport business consultant focused on aviation-driven economic development. He is currently Director for the Center for Air Commerce at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, the CEO of Aerotropolis Business Concepts LLC, an airport-economy consulting firm, and the President of the Aerotropolis Institute in China. He is also the editor-in-chief of Logistics, an open access journal published by MDPI.

Career

Kasarda has a background in economics, business, and urban sociology, and has conducted research on urban form, organizational structure, airport development, and regional economic growth. He has written 10 books and over 150 published articles, many of which synthesize two or more of these topics.
From 1980 to 1990, he chaired UNC's Department of Sociology, where he held the position of Kenan Distinguished Professor. In 1990, Kasarda moved to UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School as Kenan Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, and Director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. Over the following 22 years, he worked at the Institute for the study of entrepreneurship, regional economic development, and global competitiveness, and helped establish the Kenan Institute Asia in Bangkok, where he continues to serve on its board and executive committee.
Kasarda stepped down from the Kenan Institute Directorship in 2012, but maintained his Kenan-Flagler faculty position and directorship of the Center for Air Commerce. Much of his research and applied work since 2000 has addressed how aviation and airports impact the competitiveness and growth of firms, cities, and regions. Kasarda developed what he has termed the "aerotropolis" model for the role of aviation and airports. His theories and applied work were elaborated upon in a 2012 book Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next, co-authored with Greg Lindsay.
Kasarda has consulted on various aerotropolis developments around the world, though his most extensive efforts have been in China.
His model has its critics, including an organization called the Global Anti-Aerotropolis Movement. Nevertheless, its application has been expanding internationally, such as in Amsterdam, Dubai, and Johannesburg, Memphis, Paris, and Zhengzhou.
Kasarda earned a Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics from Cornell University in 1967, a Master of Business Administration in Organizational Theory from Cornell in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971.

Awards and recognitions