It is a staple of any economic developer’s talking points: A good transportation network is essential to an area’s prosperity. A new study from Denmark says this has been true for literally 2,000 years.
The Washington Post reported Aug. 7, “A team of Danish economists has put forth a forceful case for one largely overlooked driver of economic development in Europe: roadways built by the Roman empire nearly two thousand years ago. They demonstrate that the density of ancient Roman roads at a given point in Europe strongly correlates with present-day prosperity, as measured by modern-day road density, population density and even satellite imagery of nighttime lighting.”
The Roman Empire is remembered for many things, but it was very good at infrastructure projects. Scholars estimate that at the empire’s peak in 117 A.D., it had built more than 80,000 kilometers of roads.
This may be the first time that better roads improved trade, but it was not the last. An outstanding example occurred right here in the United States — with the construction of the interstate system.
There is a lesson in all this for Mississippi. The state had the foresight to invest billions in roads over the last 30 years. Now our leaders are resisting calls to spend more on maintenance. History does not appear to be on their side.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
