This paper offers suggestions for rethinking and reanalysing the relation between transport infrastructure and economic development. It shows the diversity of firms’ reactions to infrastructure, depending on the mechanisms of coordination at work between actors. Our research aims to show that investments in infrastructure will have an impact that is differentiated depending on the mechanisms of coordination at work and the competencies they draw on. The influence of investment policies is neither homogeneous nor uniform. We illustrate possible ways of appropriating the future Seine-Nord Europe Canal using the example of productive modes in the grain sector.
