Via Atrios, I found out that Chandra Brown of Oregon's United Streetcar Company will be a participant at Obama's jobs summit in D.C. on December 3, at the instigation of Portland's Rep. Earl Blumenauer.
The domestic streetcar manufacturer, a division of the Oregon Iron Works, will supply its first cars to Portland's metro system, then after that has a contract to build some for Tucson, Arizona.
A startup American heavy industry like this one accomplishes several things at once:
*It puts both skilled and unskilled people to work, in a modern, technologically up-to-date industry, using environmentally rational production methods, and working for decent wages. American production -- bringing the jobs home -- is the only feasible way to restore some semblance of economic sanity and stability;
*It stimulates further hiring and economic growth among subcontractors and parts suppliers;
*It places greater social as well as capital value on mass transit while simultaneously devaluing the automobile and its excess baggage, the utopian ideal of private transportation. The former concept results from a conservative view of energy; the latter is for energy spendthrifts.
*It addresses global warming and climate change.
If we've got a future, it will look something like this.
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