Roads and development = environment and energy?

Abstract

Investment in large-scale infrastructure, after a lull, has accelerated in the last decade, where roads in particular feature predominantly in development initiatives globally. While conventionally academic interventions have primarily focused on infrastructure in relation to economic development processes and its promises of modernity, more recently these arguments extended to diverse processes of environmental, economic, political and social change. Scepticism surrounding road infrastructure development interrogates whether this form of infrastructure development is justifiable. In particular, the faith placed on roads to catalyze trade, create profitability, enhance economic opportunities of local communities living adjacent to new road infrastructure projects and its ability to mitigate environmental concerns are noted concerns. Our review draws together and extends these arguments, claiming that while social, political and economic processes, and consequences of road development have undergone recurrent assessment, gaps in addressing environmental and energy aspects prevail. Given the central import of climate and environmental change at the current juncture, thus, there is also a pressing need to articulate and examine this in future work.