Infrastructure and Regional Development

Infrastructure has for many years been a substantial item on the agenda of the European Community's regional policy, but has had little impact on the narrowing of regional disparities. It has now come to the fore again, with the recognition that there is a need for a genuinely European infrastructure, not just in the obvious areas of physical transport, such as roads and railways, but also including air traffic control, other public utilities, and what may be termed the "soft infrastructure" of basic research and development and training networks. This need has become urgent as the infrastructure in many core industrial parts of the community is wearing out, and the changes in Eastern Europe have revealed a decayed and inadequate infrastructure urgently needing investment. The papers in this volume have been assembled to define the state of the art in current research, and to set out an agenda for future research initiatives, which must be increasingly international.