Does road accessibility to cities support rural population growth? Evidence for Portugal between 1991 and 2011

Abstract

Motorways in Portugal received large scale funding after the country joined the European Union in 1986, making it an ideal case to study the effect of road accessibility on the development of lagging rural areas.We investigate the relationship between rural population change and road accessibility to the urban hierarchy between 1991 and 2011. We find that rural population growth is negatively associated with increased road distance and travel time to cities, notably to medium-sized cities (20,000-99,999 inhabitants).There is no evidence of nonlinearities in the effect of proximity to the urban hierarchy between accessible and remote rural areas.population change, road accessibility, rural areas, rural-urban linkages, spillover effects | INTRODUCTIONThe nature of the relationship between urban and rural areas is complex and has changed over time in tandem with improvements in information and communication technologies, leading to an increasingly blurry distinction between what is urban and rural (Irwin et al., 2009). While the theories and models explaining these linkages differ across disciplines (e.g., economics, geography, and planning), there is a general belief that proximity to cities can benefit surrounding rural areas by providing markets for the goods produced in rural areas and a larger and more diversified pool of employment opportunities and services (e.g., public services, hospitals, and schools). At the same

The role of infrastructures in rural depopulation. An econometric analysis

“…Johnson & Lichter (2019) analyze the depopulation in rural America and find that more than 46 percent of remote rural counties that are not adjacent to metropolitan areas are depopulating compared to 24 percent that are. Melo et al (2021) suggest that proximity to cities "allow rural people to work in cities but live in nearby rural areas due to lower housing costs and preferences for natural amenities and better environmental quality (e.g., clean air, less noise, and more appealing landscapes)".…”

“…Additionally, the lack of economic dynamism, the absence of public infrastructure and having a neighboring dynamic municipality lead to depopulation. Melo et al (2021) estimate several regression models to investigate the relationship between rural population change and road accessibility to cities of different sizes in Portugal between 1991 and 2011. The results show that road accessibility to the urban areas influences positively rural population growth.…”

“…We reflect this aspect by including a dummy variable that takes value 1 if there is a train station in the municipality (RAILWAY). Melo et al (2021) consider the number of train stations.…”

“…We have chosen to proxy weather by the altitude of the municipality capital (ALTITUDE) since this variable is related with the factors previously mentioned. Similarly, Melo et al (2021) use the average slope steepness of the Portuguese districts.…”

Effects of regional accessibility on productivity: An analysis based on composite indicators

“…This research uses Portugal as a case study. The relevance of Portugal as a case study is the fact that Portugal has made a massive investment in its road infrastructure more than doubling its highway system density between 1990 and 2000 (Fernandes et al, 2019;Melo et al, 2022;Rocha et al, 2023). Around 1% of annual GDP is spent (annually) on PPP payments for road infrastructure (Cruz and Sarmento, 2018).…”