Urban 4x4's

Hmmm...
This puzzles me. Why would anyone design a 4 x 4 that doesn't perform well off road? I was under the illusion that the purpose of the 4x4 was to perform better offroad - after all the one major car company I remember when I think of 4 x 4s is Land Rover, until now. It seems, after having a discussion with one of the regular readers of my blog that the idea of a 4 x 4 that can't go off-road is not an absurd one completely and utterly ignored by the public and your average Joe the Designer Dude. Take for example the 4x4 designed to fit in an urban environment. Now, I don't know about you but the biggest obstacle you can possibly face in an urban environment, well, isn't very big. Either that or its not meant to be avoided (that's referring to you, the free-running misfits who thought they do free-running in a car). As I get to the middle point of my post I start to run out of arguments, and so I venture onto Google, begin to search relevant topics and stumble across a series of websites on urban 4x4s. This brings up a few relevant points - While the concept of Urban 4x4s is a pointless one is it any better than clogging our streets with swarms of smaller cars, surely then we should be aiming to cut down on the amount of wasted journeys or high carbon emission cars rather than a specific type of car. Having a large car is not necessarily a bad idea as it means you can pack more stuff in, meaning less journeys and less cars on the road. At the same time however, the concept of a people carrier covers that and so, if you have lots of stuff/people to carry and live in an urban environment, get yourself a people carrier and make these "environmentally mad against urban 4x4" lot shut up...

Please Note: I am complaining about the concept of an urban 4x4 not on the actual cars themselves (for example, the Nissan Qashqai is a good car, but is made for the wrong concept - I think.)