Moving Right Along
Mar. 2nd, 2011 12:07 amMom and I are plotting out the fourth book in the series that started with Cricket's Moon. A lot of the plot has to do with auto racing, and one of the details I had to figure out was what factories there are in the United States and where.
I learned a big lesson in a space of an hour or so.
In the last fifteen years, the auto industry in America has imploded. Two-thirds of the factories that existed when Reagan began his Presidency have shut down. A good number of these have been demolished; some have been repurposed as facilities for energy production or new industries or even schools.
Meanwhile, laws that were put on the books to limit the importation of vehicles have meant a great deal of foreign investment in new factories in America. Of the eighteen states that still have auto factories, fifteen have factories for "FOREIGN" cars. Toyota now has more active assembly plants in the USA than Chrysler does. Yes, the Big Three have offshored a lot of their work...but the Rest Of The World is picking up some of the pieces.
There is more to this, but I think it'll have to wait for further rumination.
I learned a big lesson in a space of an hour or so.
In the last fifteen years, the auto industry in America has imploded. Two-thirds of the factories that existed when Reagan began his Presidency have shut down. A good number of these have been demolished; some have been repurposed as facilities for energy production or new industries or even schools.
Meanwhile, laws that were put on the books to limit the importation of vehicles have meant a great deal of foreign investment in new factories in America. Of the eighteen states that still have auto factories, fifteen have factories for "FOREIGN" cars. Toyota now has more active assembly plants in the USA than Chrysler does. Yes, the Big Three have offshored a lot of their work...but the Rest Of The World is picking up some of the pieces.
There is more to this, but I think it'll have to wait for further rumination.