In downtown Oshawa, Ontario (in August)

With the exception of that last image, all of these photos were taken outside of a bus terminal. The first four murals are beside a busy road -- that is, a road which lot of car drivers use. If you look closely you'll see cars reflected in windows in those photos.

(On the map on Flickr, the photos were taken around here.)

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These murals celebrate automobiles in general, and General Motors automobiles in particular. They're a form of advertising.

Did the city government pay to have them put up?

Regardless of where the money came from, I think the presence of these murals downtown is telling; it's an indication of how entrenched the automobile industry is in the city.

The headquarters of General Motors Canada is in Oshawa, where there is also a General Motors plant -- and various related business operations (including at least one automobile inspection company).

(Decades ago, there were two General Motors plants in Oshawa. However, over the past 20 years, one of these plants was sold off and then eventually shut down.)

Oshawa and Windsor (another city in Ontario -- near Detroit) are the main centres of automobile production in Canada. Oshawa sometimes has been called a "Motor City." (Was that the official slogan for the city at one time? I think it might have been) (Now the city is marketed with the slogan "Prepare to be amazed"!)

There's a car museum in Oshawa.

Here's some information about the history of the automobile industry in Oshawa -
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Canada
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaughlin_automobile
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_McLaughlin

The McLaughlin mansion is a major local tourist site. In Oshawa, the main library branch and one of the high schools also are called "McLaughlin"; the only local art gallery (in a city of almost 150,000 people) is "The Robert McLaughlin Gallery"; there is a "McLaughlin" armoury; and there now is a large "McLaughlin" cancer centre in Oshawa. However, in my experience, people there don't see those connections; it seems that they don't notice those links with General Motors.

I grew up in Oshawa, where I lived for over 20 years. Now I often criticize automobiles, while promoting alternative forms of transportation.
Here are some relevant blog posts - http://tobanblack.net/blog/?tag=transportation

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A post about General Motors -
GM - ‘We need cars that are a little greener’

General Motors and Oshawa also were mentioned in this post -
Gas prices!

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Toban Black
(http://tobanblack.net/blog/?p=658)