The Associated Press has conducted an inventory of the 128 auto plants closed by the Big Three since 1980 and the results are discouraging.
Only about three in five has been repurposed for a new use. Those that have been reopened are employing far few workers at lower wages.

“The cost is going to be borne by the next generation,” said James Rubenstein, a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who has studied U.S. auto plant closings and openings. “It’s the children and grandchildren of the laid-off workers. They won’t have …

Michigan led the nation in one-year population loss, dropping below 10 million residents for the first time in nearly a decade, according to this article from The Toledo Blade.
Michigan lost nearly 33,000 residents this year as its economy suffered in a recession that was particularly brutal for the US auto industry.
Still, over the past decade, Michigan has gained a total of about 31,000 residents, owing mostly to births and foreign immigration.
-AS
Tweet

Interesting article about the state of General Motors from Scripps Howard.

Despite the car maker’s highly publicized reorganization this year, GM still leads the nation in market share with about 20 percent of the total, down from 22 percent in 2008.

Consumers seem to have shrugged off the auto maker’s reorganization, according to tis article. This is particularly true of Chinese consumers who have revived the popularity of the Buick.

Meeting Chinese demand will be critical because the country surpassed the US as the biggest consumer of automobiles this year.

President Obama will speak just outside Youngstown today at GM’s Lordstown plant, kicking off the a presidential tour of the Midwest on jobs and the economy, according to The Detroit News.

The plant  has been through a series of ups and downs in the past year.
From The Detroit News: Thirteen months ago, then-CEO Rick Wagoner and dignitaries attended a splashy event in the plant to announce a third shift and $350 million investment in the plant to build the new Chevrolet Cruze sedan, which is expected to launch next year and …

David Frum of the conservative American Enterprise Institute has written an interesting (albeit pessimistic) account of what went wrong in Detroit (everyone’s favorite topic).

In his National Post article “What Killed Detroit,” Frum argues that poisonous race relations and an insufficient commitment to arts and culture sealed the city’s fate long before the auto giants crumbled.

“The collapse of the automobile industry seems the obvious answer. But is it a sufficient answer?,” he wonders. “The departure of meatpacking did not kill Chicago. Pittsburgh has staggered forward from the demise of steelmaking. New York has lost one industry after another: shipping, garment-manufacture, printing, and how many more?”

The Daily Beast is carrying an article today celebrating the 16th anniversary of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, The Virgin Suicides, a dark, whimsical, coming-of-age story set in suburban Detroit.
Eugenides, a Detroit native, later went on to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling Middlesex, which also features the Motor City prominently, from the early days of immigrant tenements to red-lining, the race riots, and suburbanization.
The Virgin Suicides offers an exceptional descriptions of Detroit in its heyday; Middlesex an account of the tumultuous series of events that have made it the city it is today.
In …

  We all knew it was coming and now it has: GM is bankrupt.
  The quintessential American automaker entered Chapter 11 this morning. It is $172 billion in debt, according to The New York Times.

  GM has announced plans to close 12 factories in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Delaware and Tennessee.
  The government’s going to give GM another $30 billion to get it through what President Obama hopes will be a quick restructuring.
  Mercifully, at least GM has promised to keep its headquarters in Detroit, The Times reports.
  Chrysler, meanwhile, is expected to emerge from …

By now you have heard: The White House is forcing Chrysler into Chapter 11. Hold onto your chairs, kids, it’s gonna be a wild ride.
Workers will continue to be paid and provided with benefits, Obama administration officials said. The White House is going to loan the embattled maker of the Town & Country another $7.5 billion.
The UAW is urging bankruptcy court to retain the union contracts, The Detroit news reports. The UAW actually stands to gain from all of this forced reorganization, oddly enough. In the restructuring plans proposed this …