Entering the Conversation

1. In a letter to the New York Times in April 2012, transportation demand researcher and author Randy Salzman suggests that Americans need to “use our cars smarter” in order to “mitigate a host of problems and prevent our grandchildren from following our children in fighting wars in the Middle East.” His solution is a federal gasoline “user fee” rolled in slowly over a decade. Using the sources in this Conversation and your own reading and experience, propose a solution to America’s car problem. If you don’t think we have a problem, defend our use of the automobile.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - In a letter to the New York Times in April 2012, transportation demand researcher and author Randy Salzman suggests that Americans need to “use our cars smarter” in order to “mitigate a host of problems and prevent our grandchildren from following our children in fighting wars in the Middle East.” His solution is a federal gasoline “user fee” rolled in slowly over a decade. Using the sources in this Conversation and your own reading and experience, propose a solution to America’s car problem. If you don’t think we have a problem, defend our use of the automobile.
2. In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the narrator Sal Paradise asks—and answers, “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” Write an essay in which you examine the appeal of the automobile and the way it has figured in popular culture and literature. Use the pieces in this chapter and reading you have done on your own.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the narrator Sal Paradise asks—and answers, “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” Write an essay in which you examine the appeal of the automobile and the way it has figured in popular culture and literature. Use the pieces in this chapter and reading you have done on your own.
3. Several pieces in this Conversation communicate nostalgia for the romantic relationship between Americans and their cars. Write an essay in which you analyze that nostalgia, discussing what was romantic about the car, why the romance ended, and predicting the future of our relationship with the automobile.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - Several pieces in this Conversation communicate nostalgia for the romantic relationship between Americans and their cars. Write an essay in which you analyze that nostalgia, discussing what was romantic about the car, why the romance ended, and predicting the future of our relationship with the automobile.
4. In 2009, Sheryl Connelly, Ford Motor Company’s manager of global consumer trends and futuring, said, “The car used to be the signal of adulthood, of freedom. It was the signal of being a grownup. Now, the signal into adulthood for teenagers is the smartphone.” A survey later that year reported that 46 percent of eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds said they would choose Internet access over owning their own car. Among the baby boom generation, the people who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, the height of the American romance with the automobile, only 15 percent would choose the Internet. Write an essay in which you analyze those trends. Use the sources in this Conversation, as well as your outside reading and experience, as evidence.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - In 2009, Sheryl Connelly, Ford Motor Company’s manager of global consumer trends and futuring, said, “The car used to be the signal of adulthood, of freedom. It was the signal of being a grownup. Now, the signal into adulthood for teenagers is the smartphone.” A survey later that year reported that 46 percent of eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds said they would choose Internet access over owning their own car. Among the baby boom generation, the people who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, the height of the American romance with the automobile, only 15 percent would choose the Internet. Write an essay in which you analyze those trends. Use the sources in this Conversation, as well as your outside reading and experience, as evidence.
5. What is the future of the automobile in America? Can the auto industry make a comeback? Is it a regional issue rather than a national one? Rural rather than urban? Write an essay in which you analyze several directions for the car’s future, choosing and defending the one you think is most promising.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - What is the future of the automobile in America? Can the auto industry make a comeback? Is it a regional issue rather than a national one? Rural rather than urban? Write an essay in which you analyze several directions for the car’s future, choosing and defending the one you think is most promising.
6. Jeremy Hsu, in a May 2012 article in Scientific American, asserts that the American romance with the car was no coincidence. It was part of the automobile industry’s “battle for hearts and minds” to “take over the streets where people had once swarmed.” One strategy was the creation of the term jaywalker, “jay” being slang for an ignorant person, especially one from the country—akin to a “rube” or “hick.” This term made it unsophisticated to not recognize that cars rule the road. Finally, the phrase “America’s love affair with the automobile” was part of comedian Groucho Marx’s narration of a TV show called Merrily We Roll Along. Given the uncertainty of America’s current and future romance with the automobile, consider the kind of public relations moves that might be required to sustain it. Develop an advertising campaign for encouraging Americans to either curtail or increase their use of automobiles.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Entering the Conversation: - Jeremy Hsu, in a May 2012 article in Scientific American, asserts that the American romance with the car was no coincidence. It was part of the automobile industry’s “battle for hearts and minds” to “take over the streets where people had once swarmed.” One strategy was the creation of the term jaywalker, “jay” being slang for an ignorant person, especially one from the country—akin to a “rube” or “hick.” This term made it unsophisticated to not recognize that cars rule the road. Finally, the phrase “America’s love affair with the automobile” was part of comedian Groucho Marx’s narration of a TV show called Merrily We Roll Along. Given the uncertainty of America’s current and future romance with the automobile, consider the kind of public relations moves that might be required to sustain it. Develop an advertising campaign for encouraging Americans to either curtail or increase their use of automobiles.