A society in transition  President Bill Clinton, 1993
Meanwhile, America's "smokestack industries," such as steel and
textiles, were in decline. The U.S. automobile industry reeled
under competition from such highly efficient Japanese car makers
as Toyota, Honda and Nissan -- many of which opened their own
factories in the United States. By 1980 Japanese automobile
manufacturers controlled a quarter of the American market. Only
by the late 1980s and early 1990s did U.S. manufacturers begin
to match the cost efficiencies and engineering standards of
their Japanese rivals, and start winning back the share of the
domestic car market they had ceded to imports over the previous
two decades. Although consumers were the beneficiaries of this
ferocious competition -- and in other highly competitive
industries, as well, such as computers -- the painful struggle
to cut costs meant the permanent loss of thousands of jobs in
the U.S. auto industry.  Population patterns shifted as well.
After the end of the postwar "b