Highway infrastructure and regional economy. The case of Oaxaca and Puebla’s garlic producers

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between highway infrastructure and regional development through the case study of Oaxacan garlic crisis. By reviewing highway infrastructure and agricultural data, it is proposed that this crisis arose in the context of an increase in highway accessibility, which opened Oaxaca to greater commercial exchanges with the region, in particular with Puebla. This led to a realignment of economic agents according to their productive capacities, as well as a proliferation of unexpected effects, most of all the commercial displacement or producers’ confinement to subsistence, without ability to compete and faced with a state economy unable to absorb them.