A few weeks back, I took a drive to Saginaw, Michigan, a city of less than 50,000 people.

My goal, to figure out what Small Town America thinks about self-driving cars because there are a lot of misconceptions.

Yeah, that's a huge barrier actually because most people don't understand exactly what is an automated vehicle

This is Valerie Sate Bruegman. I am a researcher at Carr the Center for for Automotive Research, and I focus on the intersections

between the auto industry and communities and increasingly the burgeoning mobility space that goes

between them.

Bruegman regularly chats with cities big and small about the benefits of automated and connected

vehicles.

I don't know that there's a lot of things that communities without auto companies in their regions can do, unless they, again,

unless they are larger areas, Austin, Texas, of course San Francisco, Pittsburgh,

Boston, Detroit.

We hear a lot about the digital divide,

the concept that more rural areas are being left behind technologically.

This is as true of automated and connected car development as it is for broadband internet.

Sakana, Michigan sits at the crossroads of small town America and the future of

transportation. The county is home to next tier automotive, a Chinese own

steering supplier whose work in advanced safety and autonomous technologies led city leaders to commission the Center for Automotive

Research to better understand opportunities for the development of this technology, mostly

in regulation and infrastructure.

But for an area primarily known for its violent crime and persistent poverty,

what can a far-off dream of autonomous cars really accomplish.

We're going to hear from longtime locals.

...