In short, it's short-term interests and skewed incentives. A classic example particular to US airports is why transport links are almost universally terrible.

In short, it's short-term interests and skewed incentives. A classic example particular to US airports is why transport links are almost universally terrible. The answer is: parking. Parking is a huge revenue source for airports [1] so airports don't actually want good public transport links and when you do have them (eg the JFK AirTrain) they're unreasonably expensive. Airports are making up for "lost" revenue. This has been a huge problem as Uber and Lyft have cut into airport revenues. The real reason this is a problem is because airports make almost nothing from the planes using them. Shouldn't the planes be funded the airport? Another case study springs to mind: Sydney. Sydney has a very central main airport but it's relatively small compared to demand because it was planned for so long ago. It can't expand: the land around it used now. Sydney has been talking about building a second airport for at least 40 years in Western Sydney (originally named Badgerys Creek). This is much further from the city but has had all the usual planning problems eg developers build homes around the proposed site and then residents complain about the proposed airport that was proposed way before those homes were built. IIRC a similar thing happened around LAX. This was so much of a hot potato that one Australian government just gave planning permission for Sydney airport to build a third runway in the dead of night and then ran. There are funds to noise-proof affected homes and this was wildly controversial. I believe the Western Sydney airport is finally happening. I haven't looked at the planes but it doesn't include an efficient and relatively cheap high speed rail link to central Sydney, it's going to struggle. In the Western world we really need to examine how the supremacy of private property rights and utter car dependence mean we can't build anything, let alone have anything nice. It seems like Asia is the only place where non-horrible airports get built. [1]: https://www.orbility.com/news/64-parking-is-a-huge-money-maker-for-airports https://www.orbility.com/news/64-parking-is-a-huge-money-mak...