This research generates new knowledge in the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of airport-adjacent communities to better understand patterns of exposure to the negative externalities of hub airports over time. The research asks: How has the population of historically marginalized groups living near airports changed with the rise of the jet age? The spatial analysis and descriptive statistics show that airport-adjacent communities in multi-airport regions generally increased persons of color and increased renters more than their respective metropolitan regions. Additionally, the communities often underperformed socio-economically with respect to their region. The study also tests three theories from the literature to explain the relationship between airport infrastructure and their surrounding communities: the ‘power to resist’, the ‘push-pull locally-unwanted land use’ effect, and the ‘airport-centric activity center’ effect.