Oddbean new post about | logout
 I have some experience with this particularly. My family owns some land in a rural area outside the city. When we bought it back in the 90s. There were no roads. We needed roads for many reasons among them to get materials in. So that we could build a house in the land we had acquired. We talked with the neighbors, around 200 plots of land that would benefit from building roads in the area. So we got together with them and pooled resources to build the roads. They were rudimentary nothing fancy. Poor lighting I mean they weren't the highways but they were enough for what we needed.

It worked great for a few years. Then the government saw the roads were built in the area and came and imposed speed bumps and speed limits on the roads we built. Then bumped the taxes on the properties around the roads because they now had roads.

Communities build what they need in the size and speed that they need it and can afford.

We live in Colombia so your milage may vary