I recently talked to an urban planner who did some consulting in airports, and he told me that airports are governed very similar to cities and municipalities, but without all the democracy getting in the way. Did you get a similar impression from your airport work?FUN FACT: 95% of the restaurants and shops at airports are owned and operated by a monopoly.
That's actually a great quote. Yeah, I would say that the average port authority works exactly like the city council of a North Korean municipal center. We handed in the bid documents on the Sea-Tac Central Terminal Expansion on September 10, 2001. The next morning everything changed, obviously. And that's when the Port of Seattle told us that despite the fact that their forced overruns had pushed us all 300-1000% over budget, the next eighteen months of redesign would be entirely on our nickel. Why? Because fuck you, we're the Port. All that homeland security money? Yeah fuck you, that's going to porno scanners. Don't like it, get sued for breach of contract. Want to counter-sue? Go right ahead. Know that we'll hide things in federal, state or city jurisdictions depending on our mood and know that we can keep hitting you with change orders so that you lose even more money while you wait for this piece of dogshit to wind through the courts. What was even funnier was when the Port of Seattle insisted that as part of Homeland Security they needed guys with machine guns doing spot checks as people rolled up on the gate. City of Seattle said "fuck you, it ain't Port property until they walk through the door, you put any TSA shitheads outside the building we'll arrest them."