Does road accessibility to cities support rural population growth? Evidence for Portugal between 1991 and 2011
研究了1991至2011年间葡萄牙农村人口变化与通往城市道路可达性的关系，发现农村人口增长与到城市（特别是中等城市）的道路距离和旅行时间呈负相关。
Abstract Motorways in Portugal received large scale funding after the country joined the European Union in 1986, making it an ideal case to study the effect of road accessibility on the development of lagging rural areas. We investigate the relationship between rural population change and road accessibility to the urban hierarchy between 1991 and 2011. We find that rural population growth is negatively associated with increased road distance and travel time to cities, notably to medium‐sized cities (20,000–99,999 inhabitants). There is no evidence of nonlinearities in the effect of proximity to the urban hierarchy between accessible and remote rural areas.