The Asymmetric Development of Remote Areas in Texas

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the reciprocal dynamics of the growth machine framework, we test whether there was a bidirectional association between road construction and land development in remote, non‐metropolitan census tracts in Texas between 2010 and 2019, during a time when these areas experienced countering land‐use pressures from resource extraction economies, exurbanization, recreational tourism, border infrastructure projects, as well as demographic and economic contraction. Furthermore, we leverage the notion of asymmetry to assess whether these countering pressures shifted the balance of the feedback loop between road construction and land development. For the analysis, we utilize recently updated satellite imagery from the National Land Cover Database's Impervious Descriptor data set, which provides longitudinal information about changes in road and non‐road human built impervious surfaces. Covering the Years 2010–2019, using two waves of first‐differenced values, we estimate two types of models: cross‐lagged structural equation models and temporally lagged first‐differenced spatial regression models. In both types, with the full sample ( n  = 245) the results show a significant asymmetric yet reciprocal association between road construction and land development; however, after removing influential cases, only the test for asymmetry is significant, showing that prior road construction significantly spurs later land development, but the subsequent response of road construction to prior land development effectively vanishes. We frame these findings in light of the uneven development of remote, non‐metropolitan areas of Texas.