There are many spells in the core d20 Dungeons & Dragons rules that can have a major effect upon society. One that I will explore now is permenant teleportion gates or rings.
Teleportation and other similar expensive magical means of transportation acts like a cross between railroads and airlines upon cities on Earth. While the upfront cost is fairly large for a set of teleportation (two pairs of circles for round trips) circles
Teleportation sites act like rail hubs. It becomes easy to move material and people between such hubs, but remains hard to move to areas that don't have a teleportation gate. Such sites act as trade hubs. The more connections a city has to other cities, the more trade can move through that city. This trade does not even have to be destined or start in that city. Goods from nearby cities and towns that don't have teleport circles will use the big city's circles. This can earn a city large amounts of money through tolls, especially if the tolls are low and they make up the income via volume. This web of connections also promotes nearby towns and other cities. Also, what is very expensive for a village of 100 is acceptable in a city of 25,000.
Teleportation is VERY deflationary. You have instant, cheap transportation across large distances. The saving grace is that goods have to be carried on the backs of people for transit thru the teleport circles.
Teleportion, under the d20 rules, has very little operating costs unlike railroads on Earth. You need a staff to manage the gate, but each use involves no additional cost. The cost of a teleportation network is almost entirely capital costs. While it is good to build between two new points, building between an old point and a new point is almost as good. Unless the exising portals are almost 100% used, creating a new set of circles between two existing points is generally stupid.
Initial money for teleportation is made on long hauls unlike railroads. Teleportation sites stimulate local shipping. It gives rise to moving disparate raw materials to best factory site. Resource sites though double as foci. Short haul travel is still expensive. It can cost more to move a load of goods across town than across a 1,000 miles of ocean via teleport. The trip across town has to be done by cart or foot, not instanteous teleport. You can expect to see lots of congestion around teleportation terminals.
Teleportation sites are not easily subject to labor action. Each site needs very few people run other than the loads of porters. Porters don't have to work directly for the site owner, but could work for import-export houses. Porters will face a wage race to the bottom although can unionize. Porters must live near a terminial, but it could be either terminial, or even any terminial in the network. The porter makes a round trip every 10 minutes. They stay just long enough to drop off one load and pickup another one.
A major limition of teleportation vs railroad is that teleportation is in some ways a zero sum game. Each portal can handle only so many trips per day. You can not add cars to add capacity. It is closer to the Panama Canal or Manticore Wormhole in that there is a trip limit. Each tourist means one less load of cargo that day.
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