Commentary
Exploring the roadways of California yields scenery evoking two distinct worlds.
On the big freeways, surrounding every major interchange, the 21st century asserts itself in an agglomeration of concrete and glass boxes surrounded by lakes of asphalt, each festooned with a recognizable corporate logo. Food. Fuel. Lodging. The corporate power they represent is reflected in their generic interchangeability. “We have taken over the world. We are everywhere.” And they are. From California to the Carolinas, it’s the same fast food, the same gasoline, the same motel chains. You can’t tell them apart.
If you get off the main highways, a different world still exists, but it’s fading fast. Along Highway 50, which connects Sacramento to the South Shore of Lake Tahoe, there are several examples that take us back to the middle of the 20th century, before the only sources of roadside food, fuel and lodging were franchised cutouts backed by multinational corporations….