Detroit Must Die. That was the title of a column written by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate (dot com). Those terms should be enough for you to google your way into that abyss of idiocy if your self loathing compels you to do so. Originally, this week’s column was going to be an educational one. I was going to point out the impacts, both far-reaching and highly localized, of a hypothetical Chapter 7 collapse of the country’s largest auto maker. And then I got a link to Mr. Morford’s article. And I was disgusted.

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The hard news arm of the automotive press has been cursed with the grim task of reporting on the disaster that is new car sales figures over the past two months. I don’t envy them their task. The words “Black Tuesday” have been used to describe the July 1st release of June, 2008 sales figures, and for good reason. Truck sales are flatter than the Olsen twins, Chrysler is in what could only be described as a free-fall, and Ford and GM are hanging on by their fingernails. Whispers of a new recession and a return to the gas crunch of the 70s have prompted journalists, automotive and mainstream alike, to draw parallels between today’s industry and that of the late 60s.

At 23 years old, I haven’t been alive long enough that I can wax nostalgic about Detroit’s “heyday” and the troublesome years that followed. For that, I’ll refer you to Old Man Jack and his wayback machine. No, my knowledge of (and concern for) the survival of the Big Three is founded entirely in the present day. What does that do for my perspective? It would take a wiser man than myself to say for sure, I suppose. To a casual observer though, it’s uncanny how many similarities exist between these four-decades-removed time frames. But there are thousands of e-conomists on the Internet who can tell you how right or wrong you are about domestic product planning, so I’ll side-step the argument over Detroit’s short-sightedness for the time being. What’s done is done, and there is much more yet to do. Nobody knows for sure where the market is going (If you’re an exception to that rule, however, you’d do well to start applying for jobs in Detroit), but one thing seems painfully obvious: The automotive landscape of 2015 will look very different from that of 2005. The times, they are a-changin’.

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