Industry

On a recent Saturday night, Savannah Stern earned $300 to hang out for seven hours at a party in Santa Monica wearing nothing but a feather boa. The veteran of more than 350 hard-core pornography productions took the job to earn extra cash and to network. But the word at the 35th anniversary party for Hustler magazine was not heartening, especially among the roughly 75 other women working there. "At least five girls I haven't seen in a while came up to me and said, 'Savannah, are you working?

Shoes are to this industrial city what cars are to Detroit. And like the Motor City, Mexico's footwear capital is feeling the heat of foreign competition. The threat might not be apparent from the billboards hawking Mexican-made sneakers, boots and dress shoes that line the highway leading into town. Or from the malls devoted entirely to shoe stores. A statue of a cobbler graces a major thoroughfare. A footwear museum is under construction.

This is not your economy. It's not even your parents' economy. To a surprising degree, this is your great-grandparents' economy. Quietly, while attention has focused on the technology, finance and service sectors, businesses that stood astride 19th century industrial America but then collapsed have been resurrected to meet the needs of a feverishly industrializing world. In the process, much of what Americans think they know about their economy is being upended.

The White House has renominated three people for top jobs affecting the environment who were previously blocked in Congress because of their pro-industry views. According to industry lobbyists and Republican aides in Congress, Bush intends to skirt the Senate approval process if necessary by making recess appointments to put the three nominees in the posts.

Near sunrise on a summer morning in 2001, Patrick Parker of Childress, Texas, swerved to avoid a deer and rolled his pickup truck. The roof of the Ford F-250 crumpled, and Parker didn't stand a chance. His neck broke and, at 37, he was paralyzed from the chest down. He sued, and Ford Motor Co. settled for an undisclosed amount. "You can imagine what happens when you're belted in and the roof comes down even with the door," Parker said. "Your options are death or quadriplegia."

One after another, they stepped to the lectern, pleading. Don't take the land, they told City Council members. Don't put houses on it. If we lose it, it's gone forever. This wasn't a scene from some Central Valley agricultural town, with fecund acres being gobbled up at a rapid pace. This was a bustling urban enclave in late January, and the appeals came from anxious residents and business owners demanding that city officials protect factories, not farms.

All day Emily Rooinasie tried to spin wild cocoon silk into thread, but her stiff, arthritic hands would not cooperate. Her eyes blurred with tears of frustration. Finally, she tore off her green plastic apron, walked out of the silk factory and home to her one-room tin shack on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, where she cried over what she thought was a wasted chance.

Seven months ago, the abrupt closure of Clark Foam in Laguna Niguel caught the surf industry in its undertow. But as the peak selling season swells, there is no shortage of surfboards. "We were all frantic at first: What are we going to do for foam?" said Bill Bahne, president of fin maker Fins Unlimited in Encinitas, who represents surfboard makers on the Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn. board. "But in reality," he said, "everybody had plenty of time to get alternative supplies for the foam."

Not too long ago, Kashgar was a sleepy town with mud houses, largely unchanged since Marco Polo trekked through in the 13th century. But now this frontier town and other outposts in China's far west are booming with oil, cotton, coal and trade. Trains, new highways and an international airport are bringing thousands of people from neighboring Pakistan who want to take in the tourist sites and buy inexpensive Chinese goods.

Thanks partly to its healthy economy and lack of overbuilding, California's home prices are holding up slightly better than other recently red-hot locales, according to data released Monday. The nation's housing slump spread in the third quarter, as prices for resale homes in such places as Phoenix and Florida's eastern coast declined compared with a year earlier, the National Assn. of Realtors said.