Toyota is best known for its consumer vehicles, and over the past few decades, has worked diligently to maintain its image as a high quality but affordable automobile producer. The company is currently experiencing some of its worst quarters since the 1980s. Despite economic difficulties, including increased resources costs and a weak American dollar, Toyota maintains a strong focus on the US automobile market and is determined to remain profitable.

While the challenges facing Toyota are formidable, in many ways the company is much better off than any of its competitors. It has continued to invest in its future, including recently expanding to emerging markets in developing nations such as China and Brazil. Toyota has avoided many of the problems plaguing American car manufacturers, including a profitable small-car product line and avoiding the billions of dollars owed in employee benefits and pension liabilities plaguing GM, Ford, and Chrysler. By remaining attuned to market demands and adapting quickly to changes, Toyota’s stock price as well as its reputation have reflected its commitment to value.

One of the biggest sources of uncertainty for Toyota pertains to President Obama’s intentions to increase fuel-efficiency standards nationwide and foster increased mass transportation usage. The US is such a significant car market for Toyota, as 33% of Toyota’s sales are in the United States, that Toyota will not decrease its investment in the American market. However, the new automobile requirements, once passed, will likely be more strict than California’s, currently the most stringent in the nation. Meeting the requirements will incur heavy research and development costs for Toyota, which will in turn be passed on to the consumers through higher prices. Yet as Toyota is such a well-financed, massive firm, the increase in cost per automobile should be negligible

Toyota is as well-equipped for economic hardship as it is possible for an automobile manufacturer to be. It is committed to producing small cars that are increasingly environmentally-friendly, just as American consumers demand, focused on expansion even beyond the borders of the United States and Japan, and it is positioned to take over the market share that the American car manufacturers are shedding during their struggles to avoid bankruptcy.

© 2009 by Brittany Bradford. It is illegal to copy or reproduce this work without the express written consent of the creator.

Arles, France, may appear upon first examination to be a town untouched by the changes of the past couple centuries, but a closer examination will reveal a tiny metropolis that has evolved rapidly to adapt to changing lifestyle norms and external cultural influences.

Teenagers wearing floral sundresses and chatting on cell phones walk the same handcrafted cobblestone roads that Roman workers constructed over 2000 years ago. This juxtaposition between traditional Provencal life and the city’s undeniable global influxes makes Arles an unforgettably unique city in a country that is dotted with beautiful towns.

Vincent Van Gogh spent the final years of his life in Arles, painting one of his most well-known works of art, the Café Terrace at Night, as a tribute to the peace and beauty he found in this city. The history of Arles, from the Greeks who first founded it, to the Romans who colonized it, is undeniably as rich and as varied as its inhabitants.

However, what truly shine in Arles today are the town’s modern elements. The French haute couture designer Christian Lacroix has established a museum here, and hundreds of Europeans travel to southern France over the summer holidays to camp alongside the Rhone River and to truly immerse themselves in the Arlesian way of life.

Like much of the rest of France, Arles has experienced an influx of immigration over the past decade; yet unlike the larger French cities, Arlesians have accepted the changing composition of their city with an admirable grace. Today, most faces in Arles are still fair-skinned, but growing numbers of people who call Arles home have the olive complexions of men and women from Middle Eastern countries, and even more have ancestors who immigrated from the former French colonies in Africa.

Despite these changes, the unhurried pace of life and love of good companionship still mark the defining features of this town. Public events and festivities occur year round in Arles, but never more so as in the summer months, when students are out of school and the days are warm and relaxed. From traditional street entertainers to African music festivals, this small town bustles with a sense of liveliness and purpose that reverberates throughout every street, café, and home in Arles.

© 2009 by Brittany Bradford. It is illegal to copy or reproduce this work without the express written consent of the creator.