Title: Infrastructure mega corridors: a way out (or in) to the crisis?
Author: Recommon.org
Date: 12 February 2021
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In the last few months our lives have changed dramatically. Many of us
lost their jobs while many others continued working under extreme
conditions. Inequality and social injustices have become increasingly
visible features of the economic system and the society in which we
live.
The pandemic might have impacted everyone's life, but it has not
affected everyone in the same way. Among the sectors that did not
suffer, but rather benefited from the crisis, are online platforms such
as Amazon and the likes. Those sectors have become the vehicles for the
transfer from "real life" to a virtual dimension for our working,
schooling, sporting and socialising. Fortunately, many have been
questioning what the implications of all this would be; including what
might happen to the data generated by our online lives; by whom and how
is this data being treated; and what are the implications? This is a
debate that we hope will remain open, since it concerns aspects that are
not contingent to the health crisis, but are instead key factors in the
reorganization of "the extractivist society". A society that enables a
few elites to extract more and more material and financial wealth from
the territories and local communities that inhabit them, effectively
expropriating them from the power to decide upon their own lives.
While most ongoing conversations center around the health crisis and the
resulting recession, we want to bring attention to the systemic
reorganization that is taking place as we speak. We are talking about a
process that began before the pandemic, a new way of organizing large
infrastructure according to the logics of mega-corridors, to reduce time
and space, with the aim of continuously increasing profits on an
increasing scale in the face of a slowdown in the growth of global
trade. This process, which remains only partly visible, is highly
energy-intensive and rooted in the fossil fuel economy, involving the
construction of new high-speed railways for the transport of goods, port
terminals, data centres and power stations, as well as new logistics
centres covering hundreds of hectares. All this implies a radical and
irreversible transformation of territories for the benefit of large
private capital, where ports and production areas identified as "free
trade", or "Special Economic Zones" (SEZs), all become interconnected.
What are the manifestations in Italy and Europe of this global capital
agenda? How will it change the social, economic and productive structure
of our country and the continent? What impact will it have on the
climate and the environment, two central areas where failures and
systemic contradictions are already very visible? The question is partly
rhetorical: it is difficult to imagine a "globalization 2.0" which will
accelerate production, transport and consumption of goods at an
unprecedented speed while at the same time profoundly reduce the
systemic impact on the environment and climate, an impact that goes far
beyond proposed calculations of direct and indirect emissions generated.
Will the major infrastructure mega-corridors plan be challenged in the
post-pandemic economic crisis or will the current crisis be an excuse to
accelerate it? Will its overall impact be properly assessed? This
remains doubtful since harmful impacts of the global infrastructure
agenda are so far considered as the least of their problems by investors
and policy makers dazzled by forecasts and data about the production,
logistics and global trade that is starting again.
How does this infrastructure masterplan meet the needs of the millions
of people who are already paying the highest costs of a profit-driven
model at all costs? How does it meet the needs of communities that will
be removed from their lands to make way for new mega infrastructure? How
will it make our societies more resilient to the great droughts,
typhoons, and increasingly heavy rains? How will it counteract the
increasing cementing of the most densely populated areas and how will it
enable everyone to have a roof over their heads?
We believe that it is high time to open up to such far-reaching
questions.
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*Translated from an original blogpost in Italian by Elena Gerebizza and Filippo Taglieri from Re:Common introducing their new report: ["The great illusion. Special economic zones and infrastructure mega-corridors, the way to go?" ](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/ )* The original article and link to the report can be found [here ](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/ ).
