It is commonly believed that the effect of new transportation infrastructure, such as the interstate highway system, is to suck residents and jobs out of central cities and downtowns. While the decentralization of jobs and residents has been well documented, the logic in this argument about highways is incomplete. The impact of any new transportation (or communications) system should be to increase movement in both directions between the points that it connects and therefore to encourage trade between those points. With greater trade should come greater specialization in the production of the goods and services that each location in the metropolitan area does best.

To stretch the trade analogy further: the interstate highway system is similar to the development of large, fast ocean-going vessels that permitted Britain to specialize in textile production at the start of the Industrial Revolution, trading manufactured goods for grain and timber from America.