Transition time: industrial 'fabric' withers

This week a congressperson, in trying to defend his attempts to keep an auto dealership alive, said the elimination of auto dealerships was eroding the very "fabric" of our society.  He's right.

In Portland this week, I talked with good friend Paul, who worried about the same thing. This of course happened 100 years ago. In Lady Chatterly's Lover, a main character says, "I feel like I swallowed gall...I'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the Industrial epoch absolutely, like a black mistake. But since I can't, an nobody can, I'd better hold my peace, an try an live my own life: if I've got one to live, which I rather doubt." 

Then I had dinner with son Willie, now age 22. The General Motors bankruptcy "made my week" he said.
Which reminded me of San Francisco mayor Newsom's remark about SF newspapers disappearing, "No one under 30 will notice."

So it's quite possible no one under 30 will be affected by the decline of the auto. What do you think?

 Different generations, different reactions.  Both reflecting reality from two different perspectives.

Comments

[Uptowngirlsj]

As an under 30 person who rides the bus to work (I do own a car, but it is a small, fuel efficient vehicle used for big trips to the grocery store and longer distance trips), I am also excited about the dying motor vehicle industry. Less choices will force those who haven't seen the light into the "right choice" (in my humble opinion) and will also cause smaller cities like mine to make some MUCH NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS to public transit.

[Dave Ferguson]

Does "nobody under 30" include all the strivers in India and China who would (and will) give their left arm and their grandmother to have a car?

Though time for change is compressing, I think there's still a big Hebrews-in-the-wilderness factor: we'll spend a metaphorical 40 years in the desert, with various institutions and practices scrambling to survive, before reaching the point where the auto industry declines in impact to that of the kitchen-utensil industry.

I'd also understood that, 100 years after Lawrence, industry still existed in Britain. Not the dark satanic mills of Women in Love, necessarily, but surely not everyone in the UK earns his living as a social media consultant?