17 August

It’d be pretty common to say that the function of a road is to get you from A to B. Mary Beard, the historian of ancient Rome, points out that that was never the function of roads. You’ll have heard the expression all roads lead to Rome. That’s the function of roads, to consolidate the power and influence of the highest status parts of a society.  Yes a road will take you from A to B, but once a society is full of roads they will always be used to consolidate the centres of power and influence. To connect every location to those centres, to allow people, resources and wealth to be funnelled towards them.  Once you add a good road to a town or even a good railway, nearly always it marks the long-term demise of that town. It becomes just one more place feeding a major capital with people and resources.  Or put another way, once it’s easy to go everywhere, the hierarchy of status and power in a society will ensure that most people will end up in the same place. That’s the paradox of travel and transport.