<div style="margin-left: 40px;">there is a taboo about expressing opinions, an activity often felt to be reserved for politicians and the most senior officers </div> Thankfully that is fast changing. -- Sujit <div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Jonathan E. D. Richmond <<a href="mailto:richmond@alum.mit.edu">richmond@alum.mit.edu</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I do not think the issue is fear of lack of knowledge but fear of punishment. In many Asian countries there is a taboo about expressing opinions, an activity often felt to be reserved for politicians and the most senior officers --Jonathan!<div><div></div><div class="h5"> On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, Carlosfelipe Pardo wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Paul and everyone, The discussions on geographical focus and participation are very useful for Sustran. I'll comment briefly on both: - Regarding participation, I think it's lacking due to a bit of shyness from members of the group. I've met with many people when we did various training courses in Asia that would have great ideas and examples on these topics that would be extremely useful for places such as sustran. However, many of these people say they are "silent readers" of sustran. I guess what some people feel is that they aren't knowledgeable enough to give some input here, but everyone should take part! I invite all participants to think about a topic that they've always wondered about regarding sustainable transport and post it on sustran to see what other people think. It doesn't matter if we've discussed it already or if it's obvious, because many people will be reading about it for the first time. Also, I think the essence of sustran and these discussion groups is that you can be as informal as you want (though respectful), as long as you're making a contribution! Go ahead, everyone, tell us what you're thinking. - Regarding geographical focus, I think it's very useful to have broadened it to "the Global South". Problems in Asia, Latin America and Africa are pretty similar (they differ mostly in degree, but not in nature). So I'd say we should keep it global, also because many of us have interesting news to give from any of these regions and feel that they are relevant for people in other regions. Otherwise, why would we promote stuff from Bogotá in Jakarta, and it works? I would even go as far as to say that information from "the North" would also be useful here, either as contrast or good or bad example. Actually, one true obstacle between geographical regions is language. Asia is relatively "fluent" in English, while Latin America is mostly a Spanish-speaking country and many people don't speak or understand English. This is why we've also promoted the use of some discussion groups in Spanish (predominantly, sustranlac , sutp-lac and cities-for-mobility , all in yahoogroups) and they seem to work. Many non-English speaking professionals from those regions are most thankful for having developed these discussion spaces. Finally, thanks to Paul for moderating the group and for being part of its creation and development. Best regards, Carlos. Paul Barter wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Dear sustran-discussers There is a suggestion to rethink the geographical focus of this forum, sustran-discuss. *I want your views on which regional focus would be best for sustran-discuss:* A. Should we be clearer about our regional focus in order to keep the discussions more focused and consistently “on topic”? B. If you said yes to A above, then which of the following do you prefer? 1. Keep things as they are: we say in our blurb that our focus is on developing countries 2. Revert to the original focus on “Asia” (rich and poor alike) 3. Other ways to define our regional focus? (I am open to suggestions) *WHY BOTHER THINKING ABOUT A CHANGE?* * We started with an Asia focus, which we mostly still have, even though the list description says we focus on the ‘global South’ (developing countries). So, in practice, 2 probably reflects the discussions here more accurately than 1. So maybe switching to “Asia” would be clearer? High-income Asian cities (Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, HK and Singapore) often come up and they certainly feel relevant enough even if they are not in developing countries. * In practice, we don’t really get much material here on Africa, Latin America, south-western Asia or Eastern Europe anyway. * Also in practice, we get a bit TOO much discussion on issues in the West (Europe, North America, Australia/NZ) and we often need to remind everyone that there are various other forums better suited to such material. Your views? Paul Paul A. Barter | Assistant Professor | LKY School of Public Policy National University of Singapore | 469C Bukit Timah Road | Singapore 259772 | Tel: +65-6516 3324 | Fax: +65-6778 1020 | <a href="mailto:paulbarter@nus.edu.sg" target="_blank">paulbarter@nus.edu.sg</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:paulbarter@nus.edu.sg" target="_blank">paulbarter@nus.edu.sg</a>> | <a href="http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Paul_Barter.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Paul_Barter.aspx</a> <a href="http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit <a href="http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss</a> -------------------------------------------------------- If you get sustran-discuss via YAHOOGROUPS, please go to <a href="http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss" target="_blank">http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss</a> to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). </blockquote> -------------------------------------------------------- To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit <a href="http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss</a> -------------------------------------------------------- If you get sustran-discuss via YAHOOGROUPS, please go to <a href="http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss" target="_blank">http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss</a> to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). </blockquote> </div></div> ----- Jonathan Richmond +230 707-1134 (Mauritius mobile: most reliable way to reach me) +1 (617) 395-4360 (US phone number rings at home -- call me in Mauritius for the price of a call to the US). e-mail: <a href="mailto:richmond@alum.mit.edu" target="_blank">richmond@alum.mit.edu</a> <a href="http://the-tech.mit.edu/%7Erichmond/" target="_blank">http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond/</a> -------------------------------------------------------- To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit <a href="http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss</a> -------------------------------------------------------- If you get sustran-discuss via YAHOOGROUPS, please go to <a href="http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss" target="_blank">http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss</a> to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). </blockquote></div> -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- “..each million we invest into urban motorways is an investment to destroy the city“ Mayor Hans Joachim Vogel Munich 1970 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sujit Patwardhan <a href="mailto:patwardhan.sujit@gmail.com">patwardhan.sujit@gmail.com</a> <a href="mailto:sujitjp@gmail.com">sujitjp@gmail.com</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007, India Tel: +91 20 25537955 Cell: +91 98220 26627 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Parisar: <a href="http://www.parisar.org">www.parisar.org</a> PTTF: <a href="http://www.pttf.net">www.pttf.net</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------