LARGE SCALE CHANGE

The clips you have just watched talk about the impact that the rise of the car industry had on both the city of Detroit but also the whole of the USA and the rest of the world. Examples of change that resulted include the structural change of the city (and other cities afterwards around the world) with the introduction of the freeway and suburbs as well as the creation of the consumer society (as illustrated in the film with the increasing demand for cars and shopping malls). These changes are economic and social as well as geographical in their context but, as the clips illustrate, are underpinned by the political context of the car industry’s power within Detroit and the USA more generally. So, by sociological and economic large-scale change I am referring to development that is the result of but also creates:

Structural transformation of societies – in the clips you saw the physical transformation of the city through the building of roads and suburbs. This was the result of Detroit’s increasing industrialisation and urbanisation as the car industry grew.
The physical transformations – in Detroit this was very evident in terms of the city’s physical changes but also in terms of the change in modes of production (the clips talk of the change to car production but the film also talks of more recent change to agricultural modes of production) as well as changes in the population of Detroit (both in terms of size but also make up).
Rise of ‘modernity’ and mass society – again the clips discuss the rise of the consumer society with the increasing demand for consumer goods.
Technological advance – the Detroit documentary outlines how the rise of consumer society resulted in an ever increasing demand for different types of cars which, until the oil crisis, were always to be bigger and better.
Productive expansion and accelerated economic growth – the Detroit documentary discusses how the city became one of the largest and most prosperous in the country as a result of the car industry. However, it also talks of how the volatility of the car industry to world economic changes also resulted in a decline in the growth of the city.

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degree Block 1 Apunte sobre Notes - Block 1 and case studies, creado por heididdle el 20/05/2013.