The Value of Santa Monica Airport
And the role of government in creating and maintaining critical infrastructure
Santa Monica Airport is critically valuable to the local community and the nation. It also serves as a good case study for one of government’s most important responsibilities: to create and maintain infrastructure.
Santa Monica Airport has tremendous history. Called Clover Field through much of the 20th century, the airport was the most important innovation hub for commercial aviation. The airplane that launched the commercial airline industry, the Douglas DC-3, was designed and built at Santa Monica Airport. Other important innovators took root at Santa Monica Airport, such as Marconi Company, Lear Astronics, and BAE Systems.
Airplanes have been flying at Santa Monica Airport since before 1920. In 1924, the Douglas World Cruisers departed Santa Monica and became the first airplanes to circumnavigate the world. Many might think that the name Clover Field was a reference to the beautiful green pastures at the World War I aerodrome, but the airport was actually named after Greayer “Grubby” Clover, an Angelino US Army aviator who lost his life during the war. Cloverfield Boulevard and Clover Park continue as reminders of the airport’s original name.
During World War II, Douglas Aircraft Company built thousands of transport and bomber aircraft at Santa Monica Airport. At one time, the company employed more than 40,000 people, approximately half of the present-day population of Santa Monica.
I was born and raised a block from Santa Monica Airport and my passion for flight was ignited by hours upon hours of standing at the perimeter fence and observation deck watching takeoffs and landings. I began taking flying lessons while in elementary school and eventually became a flight instructor at the airport after my 18th birthday. I’m not the only one; Santa Monica Airport inspires many young people. The first pilot to fly the mail from Santa Monica was a 22-year-old woman named Joanne Reid, who began flying lessons in Santa Monica in 1932, at the age of 16. Today, children have numerous opportunities to get involved at the airport. Several schools offer flying lessons, some in light sport aircraft, which are quite affordable. Soon, electric training aircraft will be available, bringing the cost down even further. The Museum of Flying is open to public visitors and school field trip groups. The observation deck is a great place to hang out, have a picnic, and watch airplanes. Airport Days is a great way to get up close and personal with airplanes, and even to sit inside them. Young Eagles is a program that allows kids to go for their first flight at no cost. And the Civil Air Patrol Squadron 51 Cadet Program offers children a structured way to learn about aerospace, community service, to make friends, and to have a good time. There are many other wonderful possibilities for leveraging the airport infrastructure to create imaginative education for children. An aviation-magnet high school is one such concept. There are at least two excellent examples of successful aviation high schools, one in Seattle and one in New York.
Santa Monica Airport is for everyone, not just the ultra-rich. In fact, with the high cost of housing right around Santa Monica Airport, many of the airport’s users can’t afford to live in the area! The aviation community is friendly and generous. Many recreational pilots graciously donate their time, aircraft, and flying expenses to causes such as Angel Flight West and Wings of Rescue. Angel Flight West flies people in medical and financial need to and from medical care. With more than 1,000 volunteer pilots in the western United States, the organization flies more than 4,000 flights each year. Many Angel Flight passengers arrive to Santa Monica Airport, their gateway to specialized treatment at UCLA and other area medical centers.
Wings of Rescue flies animals, rescuing them from overcrowded shelters in Southern California and delivering them to loving homes in other parts of the country. This organization saves literally thousands of lives every year, thanks to volunteer pilots.
Too often, governments and individual citizens think through issues without considering the long-term, knock-on effects of their decisions. It is easy to make conclusions using only surface-level information and analysis. It is easy to consider only the information that supports one’s pre-disposition. Governments must look beyond the direct economic factors of a particular proposal.
Governments are not businesses. They are unique in their responsibility to make investments that private investors would not make. For example, private investors would never have made the investments of billions of dollars necessary to put a man on the moon or in orbit aboard the space shuttle. The timeframe to an economic return on investment was too long and the risk of failure too high. Private investors would not make the investment to build our national interstate highway system or national airspace system. However, the government’s investment in this critical infrastructure allowed for the rapid economic development through the 20th century. Of course many people dislike having a noisy highway or airport near their home, but it’s good for us as a people, and we as Americans, Californians, and Santa Monicans are strong because of our collectiveness. We celebrate our creative individuality, but we must credit our national cohesion for this great privilege and freedom.
There is a reason why poor countries are called “developing” economies. They haven’t yet developed! As an example, in the United States we have a population of approximately 318,000,000 people with a per-capita GDP of approximately $55,000. India has a population of approximately 1,210,000,000 people with a per-capita GDP of approximately $4,300. In the United States, we have approximately 10,000 airports, or about one airport for every 31,800 people. India has about 360 airports, or about one airport for every 3,361,100 people. The United States has 21 kilometers of paved highways for every 1,000 people and India has .07 kilometers of paved highway for every 1,000 people. Infrastructure investments enable people to create value for others.
Just because you’re not directly benefiting from Santa Monica Airport today doesn’t meant that you won’t tomorrow. Many technological advances are bringing the magic and freedom of personal air transportation to more and more people. Collaborative consumption apps similar to Uber will soon make light airplane ride-sharing easy. Electric propulsion will soon bring the cost of learning to fly down significantly. When airplanes first started flying in Santa Monica nearly 100 years ago, you would have been crazy to think that coast-to-coast transportation would only take five hours. Imagine what the next 100 years will bring.
It is very hard to build new infrastructure, but it is very easy to destroy it. Eliminating Santa Monica Airport would be a tragedy. It would be virtually impossible to bring it back. We must consider the airport’s value for generations to come and make responsible decisions for us as a people, not just for us as individuals. Rather than figuring out how to shut the airport down, let’s work on figuring out how to make the airport benefit more people.
