[sustran] Tata Car and getting our act together

[Robert Cowherd]

Despite the thinness of Sharma's laying out of one specious argument after
another, the elitist charge has a history of stopping otherwise well-meaning
and effective people in their tracks. This comes at a great cost. The double
whammie here is how nicely the elitist charge meshes with the
petro-automaker public campaign to extend personal mobility (automobility)
to the developing world as a social justice imperative.

Unfortunately, as in telling Brazil to stop cutting its rainforests, the
elitism charge has teeth. The key is to mobilize the measures to restrict
auto use, not necessarily ownership (see Singapore), in ways that benefit
the poor first (congestion pricing funding bus-only right of ways, etc.).

The Tata car makes it clearer than even it has been that the reasons for the
developed west to get its act together is quickly becoming less about
reducing our direct global impact and more about our effectiveness in
presenting a model for India, China, Indonesia and the rest of the
developing world before our cultural appeal and thus our capacity to lead
fades to black. 

Robert Cowherd, PhD, Associate Professor of Architecture
Wentworth Institute of Technology 550 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 USA
cowherdr at wit.edu; +1 617 989-4453



On 1/10/08 11:53 PM, "Sunny" <sunny.enie at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why critics of the Tata small car are barking up the wrong tree news
> Vivek Sharma
> 10 January 2008
> 
> Those who criticise the Tata small car are barking up the wrong tree and
> some of their arguments are elitist and discriminatory.
>