Getting the territory right: Infrastructure-led development and the re-emergence of spatial planning strategies

In this paper we argue that infrastructure-led development constitutes an emergent international development regime whose imperative is to ‘get the territory right.’ Spatial planning strategies from the postwar era are increasingly employed in contemporary attempts to integrate territory with global networks of production and trade. Large-scale infrastructure projects link resource frontiers and sub-national urban systems – oftentimes across national borders – in ways that constitute spatially articulated value chains geared toward the extraction of resources, logistical integration and industrial production. We chart the emergence of this regime, analyse its spatial manifestations and evaluate its developmental outcomes.