ABSTRACT
The Bangladesh infrastructure experience has been presented as evidence for the leading catalytic role of roads in inducing development, and thus as a model that should be copied by other similarly poor countries (Ahmed, 1990; Ahmed and Hossain, 1990; World Bank, 1990a; World Bank, 1991a). However, in Bangladesh all new road infrastructure works have environmental disbenefits, the consumption of land being both the most evident and significant in the context of the relationship between landlessness and poverty. These disbenefits have been glossed over by the vigorous promotion of road development.
