From shipping routes to airplane traffic to even the Internet, transportation planning is all about designing optimal transportation networks to move goods, information, and people around the globe. Today, we're going to trace the story of the automotive landscape as it formed across the manufacturing belt of the Upper Midwest of the United States, and show how it wasn't just a coincidence that it overlapped with transportation routes and access to raw materials like coal and iron. We'll show you how Least Cost Theory has been used to explain the location of certain industries and how it no longer seems to be holding due to the rise of globalization.