India's Mobility Merchants

As western auto markets shrink due to environmental concerns coupled with financial tightening and long-term worries about fuel supply, India has witnessed a decade-long steep sales growth rates in all categories of vehicles. The promise of a rapidly growing automobile market has brought every global auto manufacturer of significance to India. The result has been a pattern of consumption of the means to mobility which discourages discussion of its impacts, just as surely as it subdues debate about alternatives. Moreover, the State is powerfully rearranging the landscape with a hugely expensive programme to build a nationwide expressway network that will encourage individual consumption of mobility at the cost of public alternatives.