Transport

Abstract

Just as settlements cannot exist without water, they cannot grow and prosper without good communications within their boundaries and with other places. Historically, good communications have been a prime factor governing the location of successful cities, and hardly a single major city or metropolitan region in the world has continued to thrive without good physical links between its own sectors and with the outside world. The world’s first megalopolitan region, in the north-eastern United States, is founded on the massive waterway network which nurtured its early industrial development. Similar, if smaller, complexes may be found throughout the world: most primate cities have developed because of their strategic location in relation to trade routes and to other national centres of production and consumption.