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After moving out of the Bronx neighborhood where she grew up and finding a corporate job in Manhattan, Alexie Torres-Fleming decided it was time to return to the Bronx. She got involved in neighborhood issues, and in 1994 she founded Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. The community organizing group works on environmental and social issues. Last month the group celebrated one of its major successes—the opening of Concrete Plant Park, a seven-acre greenway in the South Bronx.

The book Two Billion Cars arrives in stores at the close of a quarter that has seen auto sales plummet 30, 40, even 50 percent, depending on the manufacturer. The Big Three went to Washington to plead for a handout (and Toyota has passed GM as the world’s biggest automaker, even though its sales are also in steep decline). One imagines that auto executives now view the title of this volume—the idea that the planet will soon double its auto fleet from the current billion—as an unlikely prayer.