Winter storm 1

It's been precipitating in Chicagoland for about 8 hours now, but at the moment there are no big delays or problems at any of the airports around here. So far, it seems like the only casualties were about 400 flights at O'Hare and a poor Mesa CRJ that slid off a taxiway in Des Moines:

Airplane slides off Des Moines airport runway (Des Moines Register)




I feel bad for those pilots and passengers, because it's unlikely any of them were able to get to their final destination today. With 400 flights canceled and quite a few afternoon delays in and out of ORD, they're all probably still stuck in Des Moines. And while that wouldn't be so bad for me, for other people it's probably a drag (no offense Des Moines).

In other news, California NIMBYs are at it again:

California City votes to ban fastest jets (NY Times)

The issue, apparently, is "fast jets" - an incredibly vague descriptor. The airport has been around since 1924 - a whole hell of a long time before anyone was retarded enough to build houses 250 feet away from the runways. You can pretty much see this anywhere across the country where upscale neighborhoods are built closer and closer to general aviation airports.

Cheap land is inherently easy to find if it exists close to airports. Because we don't have infinite land anywhere, urban and suburban sprawl will continually press city councils and county boards to rezone land around airports and other areas for residential purposes instead of the industrial space it is more suitable for. That's why airport land is so cheap - to attract business instead of home buyers. The fact that most buyers probably don't want to live next to airports escapes those homebuyers until they have been on the land for 5-10 years and realize they hate the airport that's next to them. It happens mostly anywhere land is more scarce than others - like California.