Comment by AngryData

Could not part of its poverty problem be caused by the restrictive travel time and rough terrain that this bridge avoids and could help them become prosperous? If you only build prosperous things for prosperous areas, poorer areas will never get better and could even get worse in comparison as competing becomes even harder.

Its like if you put a dimensional portal across a Great Lake, even if neither side of the portal is currently not very prosperous, the fact that hours of ferry turned into minutes of travel would be a huge boon to both sides and gather attention, investments, and economic benefits that could turn both sides into prosperous cities.