On the new Volvo car depends the prestige and economy of not only Michigan but the nation. Michigan has witnessed 860,000 jobs vanish in tend years. The maximum took place in 2007. There have been feeble signs of recovery in the auto manufacturing market with General Motors announcing its first profit in a quarter after a lapse of three years.

But despite this, the automobile sector, will never once more create one out of six jobs in the country as it used to do previousl,y said historian Mike Smith. The change has been brought about not only because of the pale economy but because of robots and automation as well as outsourcing and stiff foreign competition.
But still there are silver linings. The local residents are hopeful that Michigan will make it once again. It is the hope that is driving on the people of Detroit. The picture would change overnight if suddenly orders poured in for 100,000 Chevy Volts!

The Mayor of Flint Dayne Walling is by nature an optimistic person. He is in his mid thirties. Nowadays he has thousand and one reasons to be optimistic. GM is investing handsomely for the Volt project. Most of the funds would renovate one of the plants where nearly 200 workers would build an engine (1.4 litres) for the new cars.

But some hundreds of jobs would not change the ravage done to the city where a fourth of the residents are unemployed, thousands of houses foreclosed and vacant and just the concrete shells of once busy factories left standing. But Walling is determined not to lose his hopes. He said, “You can bemoan the glass that’s half-empty or you can embrace the glass that’s half-full. We’re part of next generation of GM — and that demonstrates we’re part of its future, not its past.”

In the 50s and 60’s Flint had been humming with 80,000 people pouring out the factories of General Motors. This caused traffic jams that reached up to the expressways. One generation afterwards the massive layoffs started that has well caught in Michael Moor’s attacking documentary film, Roger and Me. It targeted the then CEO of General Motors, Roger Smith. Twenty years on the situation has further worsened.

But hope like bolt from the blue has come in the form of the Volt!

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