Eastern periphery: an inquiry into some factors affecting the development of the transportation system of a New Zealand problem region

Abstract

Almost all countries, even very small ones like New Zealand, have regional problems in the sense that there are great differences in prosperity between various areas within the national boundaries. (1) As Friedmann and Alonso have noted: ''A nation has an economic landscape, akin to a physiographic one, with peaks and valleys, with areas which team with life and areas which are deserted." (2) With the increasing concentration of productive forces concomitant to the evolving capitalist system a core-periphery dichotomy has become the dominant pattern in many parts of the world. Areas possessing an initial advantage continue to grow while those less fortunate find themselves in a quasi colonial position. While the problem is by no means a new one, nor confined to capitalist economies, it is only in comparatively recent years that it has begun to attract the attention of economists, sociologists and geographers alike. (3) Over the past decade an upsurge of interest in regional studies has been discernible in New Zealand. (4) So far, however, no study has focussed closely upon the place of transport in regional growth. The present study attempts to at least partially fill this void. No attempt is made, however, to assess comparative regional performance. Even for a country the size of New Zealand this would be a vast proposition. Rather an acknowledged problem region has been selected and a blend of the techniques of historical and economic geography employed to explore the relationship between transportation development and regional economic development, to analyse the evolution of a transport system over a specified time period, to attempt to determine the relative importance of factors influencing the rate at which the system developed, and to assess the relative importance of the various transport modes.