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This paper studies the impacts of the large-scale Road Sector Development Program in Ethiopia between 1997 and 2016 on local economic activity and land cover (urbanization and cropland). It exploits spatial and temporal variation in road upgrades across Ethiopia, together with high-resolution panel data derived from satellite imagery. The findings show that road upgrades contributed to increases in local economic activity, as proxied by nighttime lights and urban land area. However, there is significant heterogeneity in the results across baseline levels of economic activity. Specifically, gains from road upgrades are concentrated in areas with moderate-to-high initial levels of economic activity. By contrast, there was little, or even negative, growth in areas with low levels of initial economic activity. Finally, the findings show that road upgrades contributed to a reduction in cropland in areas with medium-to-high baseline nighttime lights. The results suggest that Ethiopia's ambitious road infrastructure development program overall increased local economic activity and urbanization, but that it also had important distributional implications that need to be taken into account when planning such infrastructure programs.

L’émergence des produits identitaires liés à des territoires bénéficiant ou pas d’une autonomie politique est un fait à resituer dans l’évolution du capitalisme de consommation. On l’expliquera en congruence avec les analyses de l’hypermodernité selon Gilles Lipovetsky. C’est le développement exacerbé de la consommation de masse qui a fait apparaître des risques nouveaux (notamment environnementaux et de santé) et des limitations (notamment en matière énergétique), générateurs d’anxiété et contrariant l’hédonisme dominant. Les produits identitaires mémoriels-émotionnels, conçus dans une phase antérieure où ces risques n’existaient pas apparaissent aujourd’hui comme rassurants eu égard aux territoires historiques qu’ils expriment. La emergencia de los productos identidarios atados a territorios que tienen o no una autonomía política es un hecho a resituar en la evolución del capitalismo de consumo. Se explicará en congruencia con los análisis de la hipermodernidad según Gilles Lipovetsky. Es el desarrollo exacerbado del consumo de masa el que ha hecho aparecer riesgos nuevos (sobre todo medioambentales y de salud) y limitaciones (sobre todo en materia energética), generadores de ansiedad y que contrarían el hedonismo dominante. Los productos identidarios mémoriales-émocionales, concebidos en una fase anterior donde estos riesgos no existían aparecen hoy como tranquilizadores tenido consideración en los territorios históricos que expresan. The emergence of the identitaries products related to territories benefiting or not of a political autonomy is a fact to resituate within the evolution of the capitalism of consumption. One will explain it in congruence with the analisis of the hypermodernity according to Gilles Lipovetsky. It is the exacerbated development of the consumption of mass that has made appear new risks (notably environmental and of health) and limitations (notably in energetic matter), generators of anxiety and annoying the dominant hedonism. The identitaries products memorials-emotionals, conceived in a previous stage where these risks did not exist appear today as taking in the account the historical territories that they express.

With all the recent attention focused on big data, it is easy to overlook that basic vital statistics remain difficult to obtain in most of the world. This project set out to test whether an openly available dataset (Twitter) could be transformed into a resource for urban planning and development. The hypothesis is tested by creating road traffic crash location data, which are scarce in most resource-poor environments but essential for addressing the number one cause of mortality for children over age five and young adults. The research project scraped 874,588 traffic-related tweets in Nairobi, Kenya, applied a machine learning model to capture the occurrence of a crash, and developed an improved geoparsing algorithm to identify its location. The project geolocated 32,991 crash reports in Twitter for 2012-20 and clustered them into 22,872 unique crashes to produce one of the first crash maps for Nairobi. A motorcycle delivery service was dispatched in real-time to verify a subset of crashes, showing 92 percent accuracy. Using a spatial clustering algorithm, portions of the road network (less than 1 percent) were identified where 50 percent of the geolocated crashes occurred. Even with limitations in the representativeness of the data, the results can provide urban planners useful information to target road safety improvements where resources are limited.