Ending the "Auto-Industrial Society"

The woes of the automobile industry--and the prospects for a federal bailout--must be seen in terms of the need to transform not just the industry, but our entire automobile-oriented society, writes Emma Rothschild.

1 minute read

February 12, 2009, 11:00 AM PST

By Michael Dudley


"The automobile industry has been one of the losers in the new American economy...But the auto-industrial society, with its distinctive organization of American space, cities, highways, social entitlement, and energy use, has continued to flourish.

[A] bailout that includes no more than a commitment to fuel efficiency, or to electric vehicles, without increasing investment in public transportation and in the substitution of information for transportation, would be a denial of the Obama administration's commitments to respond to climate change...An enduring bailout, or a new deal for Detroit, would be different. It would be an investment in ending the auto-industrial society of the late twentieth century."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 in New York Review of Books

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