The Political Economy of High Speed Rail in the United States

Is high-speed rail socially exclusive? An evidence-based worldwide analysis

“…In practice, works interested in HSR-related social equity focus mostly on fares (see Cavallaro et al, 2020;Zhan et al, 2020). Even the scarce research works on the politics of HSR tend to neglect the social dimension of HSR use (e.g., Katz-Rosene, 2017;Minn, 2013). Actually, spatial equity issues raised by HSR have not received much more attention than social equity (see, for instance, Cascetta et al, 2020;Martínez Sánchez-Mateos and Givoni, 2012;Monzón et al, 2013;Shi and Zhou, 2013).…”

The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (an excerpt)

“…In the same way, studies on the economic consequences of transport development suggest the need for another conceptual framework [Flyvbjerg, Mette, Buhl 2005;Shoup 2011;Ingvardson, Nielsen 2017]. In addition, a transport-oriented political economy perspective is considered a problem within the decision-making process [Klopp 2011;Minn 2013] rather than how mobility is actually produced.…”

Theorizing nation-building through high-speed rail development: Hegemony and space in the Basque Country, Spain

“…The dynamic nature of the capitalist economy thus requires the continuing reconfiguration of the geographical space defined by existing, fixed infrastructures, which with time become barriers to be overcome (Swyngedouw, 1993). For instance, Minn (2013) has argued that plans for high-speed rail development in the United States have been partly driven by its potential to overcome the barriers that the post-war suburban spatial fix currently poses. Yet infrastructures may also be used as objects of fixed capital investments in order to temporally displace crises of over-accumulation (Harvey, 2006).…”