Transport Connectivity and Urban Development: The Case of Africa (1880-2020)

Abstract

This paper investigates the interplay between population dynamics and transport connectivity in African municipalities from 1880 to 2020. Using an original historical dataset spanning African countries, we examine how proximity to railways and ports has shaped population dynamics over time. Through the application of Granger causality and Vector Autoregression (VAR) models-accounting for structural breaks and regime changes-we demonstrate that transport infrastructure development has a statistically significant and directional influence on urban population growth. Our findings reveal that city size and growth are not randomly distributed across space; rather, they are systematically linked to historical patterns of transport connectivity. In particular, the largest and fastest-growing cities consistently correspond to strategic nodes at the intersection of railway and maritime networks. These results, reinforced by hierarchical clustering and regime analysis, highlight the enduring impact of colonial infrastructure and institutional path dependence. The study also points to broader implications for contemporary urban planning in the context of containerization and modern global trade flows.