If a piece of land with a runway has neither passenger or cargo transport activity... would an ordinary person on the street really consider it as an airport... or is it really an industrial site with some very unusual usage of land ?
My point is that the further away MME gets from the ordinary commercial transport of people and goods... the further it gets from what non-aviation people associate with an airport, and the consequent implications for public support from local people.
If it ends up hosting thousands of high skill jobs, that's great and it will be recognised by the local populace... but if it becomes something closer to just a noisy factory paying minimum wage, then local people may start to wonder how the runway facility is useful to them and why it should consume tax subsidies which could be used for other purposes in the region