Are current road investments exacerbating spatial inequalities inside European peripheral regions?

The European Union has made considerable investments in transport infrastructures to reduce development gaps within and across territories and achieve a stronger regional cohesion. However, these economic efforts have not shown the expected effects, especially in peripheral regions, mainly due to the varied nature of their inner areas. This study aims to shed light on the existence of different types of areas inside peripheral regions that respond differently to the construction of new high-capacity roads, conditioning the achievement of cohesion goals. These disparities were explored through a detailed intraregional analysis of the peripheral Spanish Northwest Area over a 25-year period, through the identification of spatial categories that group homogenous areas in attention to three criteria: socio-economic development, spatial dynamics of urbanization and accessibility improvements. The application of a hierarchical clustering technique to different time scenarios and their comparison showed the existence of dynamic, stable and regressive areas, in terms of performance. Our findings reveal that with accessibility improvements regressive areas decreased and dynamic ones increased over time, but this transformation did not translate into an improvement in socio-economic intraregional cohesion. These results highlight the importance of considering intraregional diversity when formulating and implementing policies aimed at strengthening territorial cohesion.