Airports do not have minimal safety distance measured in miles.

Catastrophic failure of a plane causes a fire, catastrophic failure of a rocket causes a detonation the size of a small nuke.

So you are saying space ports will need to be far out from civilization, and connected to cities by some sort of high speed transport, maybe one located underground for safety reasons?

> Catastrophic failure of a plane causes a fire, catastrophic failure of a rocket causes a detonation the size of a small nuke.

Rockets do not detonate. They cause rapid burning. The fuel and oxidizer are not well mixed so cannot detonate.

I meant 'they explode" in laymans terms

The terms "nuke" were used which conveys the entirely wrong message. Even if you release the energy of a nuke, if you release it slowly you can even generate electricity from it. What matters is how fast the energy is released and a rocket explosion releases energy relatively slowly.

Building airports is already difficult, because they require a lot of space and cause a lot of noise. People also oppose them for environmental reasons or simply because they don't like them. Spaceports are going to be worse in every aspect.

I don't see spaceports appearing in the densely populated areas of Europe or US East Coast or in LA, and definitely not in the Bay Area. You have to build them in remote areas or in international waters, and then you have to pair them with a conventional airport or with high-speed rail.

The main issue would be how far off the coast the launch and landing platforms would need to be to minimize negative impacts to the local population.