the end of car culture
So, it’s pretty much been happening since 2005, and Pepperoni Pizza will be spinning in his future Hummer’s grave, but the cutbacks and layoffs and bankruptcies of the North American auto industry are becoming frighteningly more commonplace and signify the imminent end, or at least substantial crippling, of the industry that built America.
As the assembly lines slow down, the blue collar workers in auto plant supported cities like Windsor, Ontario lose their benefits, and worse, their jobs and livelihoods. The gap between the rich and poor is, as predicted, growing steadily.
Furthermore, the deterioration of the auto industry perhaps signifies the crippling of the grandmother of excessive consumerism – Ford’s assembly line. After all, the ability to mass produce endless stock led to the need to promise happiness in an unneeded product. Then, the need for credit, the greed, and the current giant snowball of horror that is the worst economic crisis seen in decades.
Sad that those at the bottom will feel the most crippling pinch as a result of this long-coming lesson, but fitting that the industry that started it all is the one of the first to go down hard.