PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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European researchers warned that correlations between transport endowment and
regional wealth were more likely to point to a historical relationship due to long-term
agglomeration processes and did not necessarily reflect recent infrastructure investments
(Brocker and Peschel 1988). A London School of Economics study on the socioeconomic
impacts of transport projects financed by the Cohesion Fund found that the
actual impacts varied widely, even for carefully selected infrastructure investments (LSE
1997). Several recent studies, in particular, cast serious doubt on the notion that weaker
regions always benefit from transport investments (see especially Vickerman,
Spiekermann et al. 1999). Even those scholars who continue to believe that transport
investments are a key trigger for economic benefits increasingly admit that these benefits
will not necessarily be reaped by the majority of inhabitants in the disadvantaged
regions. 3
The Italian Mezzogiorno presents a strong example of a lagging region where a
relatively high endowment with transport infrastructure has not as of yet resulted in a
significant rise of local incomes, thereby strengthening the frequent assertion that other
socio-economic factors are more important (also see CEC 1999b). Meanwhile, the
Nordic countries present the opposite case of highly successful regions with high average
incomes and relatively low-density transport infrastructures. In fact, the Nordic countries
are an interesting reminder that transport is a derived demand and that the key
comparison for inter-regional or international comparisons is infrastructure endowment
per capita, rather than per square mile or kilometer, as other studies have implied.
Comparing the Nordic countries to the EU 15 average, it is obvious that the Nordic
countries have significantly less roads and railways per square kilometer, a fact easily
3 Also see the discussions in Chapter 5.