Abstract
Impending global urban population growth is expected to occur with considerable infrastructure expansion. However, our understanding of attendant infrastructure inequalities is limited, highlighting a critical knowledge gap in the sustainable development implications of urbanization. Using satellite data from 2000 to 2019, we examine country-level population-adjusted biases in infrastructure distribution within and between regions of varying urbanization levels and derive four key findings. First, we find long-run positive associations between infrastructure inequalities and both urbanization and economic development. Second, our estimates highlight increasing infrastructure inequalities across most of the countries examined. Third, we find greater future infrastructure inequality increases in the global south, where inequalities will rise more in countries with substantial urban primacy. Fourth, we find that infrastructure inequality may evolve differently than economic inequalities. Overall, advancing sustainable development vis-à-vis urbanization and economic development will require intentional infrastructure planning for spatial equity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1193 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2025 |
Funding
This study was part of doctoral dissertation research conducted by Bhartendu Pandey at the Yale School of the Environment, also supported by the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and subsequently advanced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). Research (multi-scale analysis) sponsored in part by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy. This work was also supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001). We thank Esther Parish from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for her feedback on a previous version of this manuscript.