Roads have important economic and military functions.
Roads give access to previously inaccessible natural resources, such as remote plantations, forests, and oil fields, and stimulate economic development and immigration of settlers. New roads bring relatively isolated and autonomous people, for instance living in uplands, within reach of administrative centres. New streets in a city may redirect the urban development and lead to sharp increases of land price. Because of their economic and strategic functions, roads are contested objects. Whereas some groups of interests compete to construct roads, or argue about the most desired route, other groups try to prevent road construction or block existing roads.