Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: José Ángel Hernández Luis
Title:  Desequilibrios territoriales en la isla de Puerto Rico inducidos por las infraestructuras y medios de transporte en la segunda mitad del Siglo XIX
Abstract: Resumen:El objetivo principal de este trabajo es analizar los desequilibrios territoriales –económicos y demográficos sobre todo– que, en la isla de Puerto Rico, causaron la construcción de las primeras infraestructuras y medios de transporte marítimos, viarios y ferroviarios con anterioridad a la anexión norteamericana de la Isla en 1898. El resultado es que estas primeras infraestructuras para el transporte se construyeron hacia los espacios con mayor productividad agraria, aislando por lustros a los espacios menos desarrollados y, por ende, favoreciendo un desequilibrio territorial aún mayor, cuantificándose sobre todo este desequilibrio desde el punto de vista demográfico.Abstract:
Introduction:
            In
the second half of the 19th century, the island of Puerto Rico experienced a
strong economic and demographic growth, revealed in a rapid transformation of
the space. At the same time, public investments were channeled towards the
construction of the first modern transportation infrastructure, namely roads,
railways, and ports.
            We
start with a territorial analysis of the transportation prior to the annexation
of the island by the United States in 1898, and taking as a central axis the
well-known imbalances resulting from the planning of transportation in Puerto
Rico. We will analyze how the infrastructure and means of transport—financed
entirely with public funds and for which the cost-benefit assessment was vital,
on the basis of the available resources of the territory—spread especially
towards the north, south, and west of the island, leading to an intensification
of the uneven distribution of the population and the economic activities in the
territorial fabric, at the expense of the east of the island.
            However,
this does not exclude the impact of some factors such as the productivity of
the soil, the climate, the structure of land ownership, etc., determinants of
settlement and empowerment of the population, like the economic activities,
especially in the 19th century, when the highest percentage of cash money
relied almost exclusively on farming as the main activity.
            Thus,
the principal objective is the analysis of the territorial imbalances generated
by the construction planning of the infrastructures and means of transportation
in Puerto Rico in the second half of the 19th century, leading to a
heterogeneous socioeconomic growth according to regions. It is therefore a
study of regional development, delving into the territorial imbalances, but
also, obviously, taking Historical Geography and the Geography of
Transportation as justification of the well-known imbalances.
 
Methodology:
A deductive analysis is applied,
that is, we analyze whether the general theory of development and the
imbalances caused by the transportation means and infrastructures in the
territory manifest in particular on the island of Puerto Rico and, in any case,
their magnitude. For this purpose, we considered a period of maximum
territorial change, such as it is the second half of the 19th century, delving
into various written documents, many of them unpublished and consulted in situ,
such as the “Archivo General de Puerto Rico” [General Archive of Puerto
Rico], especially the “Fondo de los Gobernadores Españoles” [The
Fund of the Spanish Governors], particularly since the mid 19th century until
the end of the century. This Fund, which consists of almost 450 boxes or files,
in which the most relevant documents of the Governors in their active period as
such are filed, provides a valuable and privileged insight into the Island at
each historical stage. Thus, screening this information, selecting these
Governors’ viewpoint of the state of the infrastructures, times of
transportation between nuclei, etc., was hard work, but it produced good
results.
Similarly,
the queries in the General Library of the University of San Juan of
Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras Campus) were very fruitful, with the noteworthy
extraction of information from several Master's Theses of excellent
quality, although unpublished.
Likewise,
punctually, we also made use of other sources like La Gaceta de Madrid,
in which were published the main provisions in the field of transportation
infrastructure for the Island at this stage.
We also
highlight the elaboration of diverse historical maps of the Island, based on
the reconstruction of travel times, which is the result of a long compilation
of the description of the trips that different authors made in the last third
of the 19th century. This served as the basis for the construction of the
isochronous maps.
 
Main results:
The infrastructures were not built at the same time, but instead were the
object of a previous, more or less justified, planning. In the case of Puerto
Rico and as of the mid 19th century, the preconceived idea of spatial planning
was rooted in the empowerment of those nodes that were thought would contribute
more to the richness of the island. From this premise, over the second half of
the 19th century, a transportation system emerged, which was based on
military-strategic justification and on the higher agricultural production in
the north, south and west of the island. Thus, the organization of this
transportation system began to be developed from the main town—and export port
par excellence, that is, the capital of San Juan de Puerto Rico—to the rest of
the enclaves with economic and demographic potential. In any case, the
population —perhaps as a result of increased agricultural production in the
above-mentioned regions —was also located in the west, and meridian of the
island, no doubt justifying the promotion of transportation towards them.
Hence, the planning of the network
of roads, railways and maritime links will reflect this inequality, fomenting
it further after the infrastructures are definitely built. Thus, whereas in the
last quarter of the century, the ring road that was planned for the west, from
the Capital to Santa Isabel (passing through Arecibo, Mayaguez and Ponce), was
classified as first-rate, with better constructive characteristics and special
attention to its conservation, the eponym for the east between San Juan de
Puerto Rico and Santa Isabel (passing through Fajardo, Humacao and Guayama) was
classified as second-rate, and was interspersed with country roads.
This inequality was even greater
when, in 1887, the Central Highway was completed, crossing the island from the
northeast to the southwest, considerably reducing the physical distance between
the two enclaves. Maritime transportation was the sole alternative for the
towns of the east in view of the lack of good roads, and proof of this is the
first-rate reclassification of the roads between Guayama and its natural harbor
(Arroyo), in addition to the roads between Humacao with Naguabo.
At the end of the century, the
prominent imbalance became a  somewhat
more moderate demographic growth in the eastern departments (Humacao and
Guayama) in relation to the rest of the island, because while these departments
increased their population by 20 percent between 1877 and 1899, in the rest of
the states, the population increased by 33 percent. In addition, we detect that
the municipalities closer to the Main Highway reached more relevant demographic
increases, despite being were inland, as was the case of Cayey with a growth of
60 percent between two censuses. The demographic increases of the coastal
municipality of Salinas are also very important, exceeding 80 percent between
the two censuses due to its richness in sugar plantations and being only twenty
kilometers from the Main Highway. But in short, the further we travel from this
highway toward the east, the more meager is the population growth. So much so
that, in general, even though the coastal towns are more dynamic than the
inland towns, in the departments of Guayama and Humacao, this hypothesis was
not confirmed, as the closer we move to the coastline—and therefore, moving
away from the Central Highway—the population growth is lower and even negative,
as in the towns of Arroyo and Fajardo, with a very limited growth in the
municipality of Humaca, still within this context.
 
Conclusions:
The economic prosperity of Puerto
Rico in the 19th century, based mostly on crops, led to an unprecedented
demographic increase, concentrated in the states with higher productivity, such
as Ponce, Arecibo and Caguas.
With the proliferation of farms and
the population increase, the need for new, faster, and safer transportation
infrastructures was established, in order to enable trade and, hence, the
empowerment of export agriculture. 
But the most relevant aspect is that
the territorial development model based on transportation derived from the
Spanish administration was an absolutely productivist approach, in which the
connections with exporting ports predominated.
In short, in the case of Puerto
Rico, the policy of building transportation infrastructure linking producing
centers with ports of export led to the population's greater attraction towards
these territories, mostly from the north, west and south-east of the island, so
the easternmost space was relegated to a greater delay. This latter is
especially observed between the population censuses of 1877 and of 1899, where
the territories with a greater demographic weight of births increased their
population more moderately in relation to the rest of the island.
 
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Infraestructura del transporte, Desequilibrios territoriales, Desarrollo Socioeconómico, Geografía Histórica, Isla de Puerto Rico., Freight Transport, Regional Imbalances, Socio-Economic Development, Historical Geography, Puerto Rico Island.
Pages: 17-43
Volume: 1
Year: 2019
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2560.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:1:y:2019:p:17-43