Country Mouse, you've brought a very interesting, eye-opening article to the table. From your rather brief synopsis of it, however, I'm led to believe that you haven't read the whole thing.

I say this particularly on the basis that there's a section entitled, "Yes, You Should Still Take Transit". True, the author points out that public buses and light rail are not as efficient or eco-friendly as we generally regard them, but they aren't awful, and they're still mildly better than two-person carpooling, unless you drive electric.

As far as the issue of surveillance is concerned, why yes, it is dramatically easier to observe the populace en masse when we use mass transit. If this is a concern of yours, I think we should both vow to fight legislation that enables current surveillance and future expansion of surveillance.

It doesn't have t'be that way, Mousey! We can make a difference!

I think American car companies go out of their way to make their "economy" models look frumpy so that people who can afford more (if only by way of 'trick' financing) will be embarrassed to buy them. The damn things practically scream THIS IS A CHEAP CAR.

cars are more efficient than public transit

http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/

public transit supports cheap and easy widespread surveillance.

the cost of buying urban property is roughly the same as buying suburban + 15 yrs of car use.

who is going to pay people 2x-3x the value of their suburban property so they can buy the same sq footage of urban property?

do your math before spouting dark green platitudes of decay and retrenchment.

I had a recent problem: I wanted warm clothing for the winter and I liked the look of turtlenecks when wearing full-length wool overcoats. So I set out to buy a turtleneck. I live up in the 'hood, so big name stores are rare, so I had to hop on a bus to get to the nearest chain, which happened to be a Target.

Target did not have turtlenecks. They had long-sleeve crew shirts, v-neck sweaters, hoodies and these combination get-ups that try to approximate the Preppy uniform. Likewise, they didn't have wool overcoats but instead offered parkas and peacoats.

Target offered a Look. This Look was not the look I was looking for, which irked me because Target was clearly a general-audience department store. Another bus ride further, Gap produced much the same options, leaving me dry. Eventually I had to go all the way downtown to Uniqlo (comedically referenced as the Japanese Gap) to get a selection of warm-weather gear in the style that I was looking for.

This is the same feeling I get when I go to Borders or Barnes & Nobles: They're "general audience" stores fit for a national audience, but they limit their options while at the same time strong-armed better stocked stores of a similar nature. Anybody who remembers Coliseum books knows that Barnes & Nobles at Lincoln Center and Borders at Columbus Circle are poor comparisons.

Likewise I get the same from Ford. What's Ford's regular sedan? The Taurus? The Mercury Sable? Underpowered oversized saloons that are only beginning to approach what Toyota's been doing for 20 years. Give me a Honda Civic any day.

As to old folks, Boomers and the necessity of the car? Hey, American suburbia, RIP: 1946-2007. Maybe you should have thought about that before you defunded city mass transit networks, eh? But hey, I hear ya: We can't all be like NYC.

"The auto industry isn't driven by demand; it's like the clothing industry. Consumers must pick from what's offered, and if what's offered is giant SUVs and vans, trucks, and hummers, or high-end sports cars, that's what people have to buy whether they like it or not. "

I'm an odd one to defend the Big 3, but this is so wrong, I have to chime in. Like most industries, the auto industry is completely driven by demand. Every product they make can be defined as a response or in anticipation of demand.

Your comment shifts the blame from the consumers for our foolish vehicle decisions, but that just won't wash.

There was never a time in the past three decades that we didn't have efficient well-made compact and mid-size cars as a choice. Most of the better ones were under foreign brands, and the sensible people who bought sensible cars have made Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc... what they are today. So those choices were out there for any American buyer who bought a big SUV or other over-sized vehicle instead.

I'll pick on SUV buyers mostly as pickup purchases are generally more need-driven (not that there weren't excesses there as well). There are a few who bought SUVs out of genuine need. They make sense for anyone who takes the family and tows a trailer as modern passenger cars do not have the towing ability of your average passenger cars of the 50s - 70s. But mostly people bought SUVs because sedans were "boring", minivans were "boring", and station wagons were "really boring". Sure advertising played this up, but ads generally tap into a desire, not invent it. And the ads are mostly there to keep you from buying the other guy's product anyway.

When mass quantities of customers flock to a competing brand because they have a popular product and you don't, you better respond, because it is a lot harder and more costly to win them back. Not to mention the hell you catch from the dealers; who are the manufacturer's primary customers.

So everyone jumped into the SUV game because:

1. That what the customers were buying in droves

2. They were profitable, particularly if you already made a pickup truck that you could plop a wagon body with leather seats on top of.

Where Detroit faltered was in anticipating demand. While Toyota and Nissan jumped into the big SUV game in a big way as well, they never stopped devoting significant money into the compact and mid-size segments, staying competitive with Honda who was very restrained in the SUV arena. Detroit let their small and mid-size car programs languish. You had occasional bright spots like the PT Cruiser, but generally their cars were not competitive. And even with promising products - some out now - others on the way, they have lost their credibility in this area with much of the buying public.

That last part is their biggest problem. And appearing to teeter on the brink of oblivion certainly doesn't help matters.

I'd like to see our mass transit infrastructure built up as well, but I don't see it absorbing 3 million or so private-sector jobs.

The Big 3 make easy targets, but the blame for the SUV craze lies solely on those who bought them.