A view of the U.S. economy from Route 66 — 100 years on

It’s the 100th anniversary of Route 66, a roadway that has both shaped and reflected the twists and turns of the U.S. economy and its development. So what does a journey along Route 66 teach us about where the American economy might be headed next, amid the advent of artificial intelligence? “Marketplace Morning Report” David Brancaccio set out from Southern California to find out. Below are his impressions.

On this 100th anniversary year of what’s called the “Mother Road,” I wanted a more immersive, updated view of the U.S. economy by traveling a length of historic Route 66, linking Chicago to Southern California. That’s where I started.

For road-tripping Route 66 in 2026, I went for a couple different vehicles with a couple of friends. We started at the more futuristic end of the spectrum — in a Waymo robot taxi by the pier in Santa Monica, California.

We made our way down a stretch of 66 called Santa Monica Boulevard, in a city at the sharp end of the coming economic transformation: headquartered here are some of the entertainment companies which could soon to be amped up or wiped out by artificial intelligence. This includes Skydance, which recently bought Paramount, and the gaming company Activision Blizzard. But Santa Monica, with its elevated coefficient of economic inequality, is not all fancy studios.

The next leg of the trip is just 25 miles in a carbon-intensive 1966 vintage Oldsmobile 442, for a throwback vibe. And then it’s onto my plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt. But the bulk of the 900-mile journey ends up being done with a spiffy 2026 all-electric Rivian SUV.

By the time we’ve made it two hours east to San Bernardino, we’re fully immersed in the “oldies” vibe of so much of modern Route 66. It looks like this: a mix of kitschy nostalgia and T-shirts on full display. But we should also remember this roadway as the route of the 1930s mass migration, carrying desperate families fleeing the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl who collected in camps in San Bernardino.

We stayed one night in one of the concrete cones for rooms at the Wigwam Motel on Route 66, and then it’s back to the recharged Rivian for a rapid climb into the economy of the high desert, where I found this man up a ladder.

“The patina on this building is for real,” Matt Parker explained to me. “It’s earned. It’s not painted on. It’s not fake.”

Parker is a jack of all trades, including photography, and here he’s working on the weathered wooden sign at the Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs, California. Matt said there are so few jobs along this sandy stretch of Route 66 that employment is not even a topic of friendly conversation.

“When I give rides home from church or something like that, and a passenger will get in, I’ve never said these words: ‘So, what do you do for a living?’ Those are just words I’ve never put together,” Parker said.

You can buy T-shirts and cold drinks at the cafe — they’re trying to sort out permission to cook food again. Who would come here when the amazing Peggy Sue’s ‘50s Diner is just 17 miles west? Well, it turns out, French tourists seeking to relive some old movie magic from the late 1980s. There’s an old German film called “Bagdad Cafe,” where actress Marianne Sägebrecht, dressed for the Bavarian Alps, ends up here instead.

“If you buy the tourist package from France to come here to America, this is on it,” Parker explained.

While the sand long ago reclaimed a famed water park here, multiple artificial lakes survive. And Parker’s plan is to tap his deep well to refill his lake to be the centerpiece of what he will brand the Sweet Haven campground. Parker also explained that the railroad is looking to make this a hub.

The BNSF Railway is now building along Route 66 east of here the biggest railway-to-truck freight facility in the country. It promises “thousands” of direct jobs — if world trade still calls for such a complex in this era of tariff-induced reverse globalization.

Closer to the Arizona border, I spotted the restored neon sign for Roy’s Motel and Café. The motel’s abandoned. The café has no hot food, but it has Ms. Nicole selling an eclectic range of sodas. I try pumpkin.

“It boomed until 1972 when the interstate came through,” she said. “It dropped to 2% of the traffic overnight.”

Again, cash flow is driven by cross-border commerce. I learned that here, it’s busloads of Italian tourists visiting — so many that the soda bottle recycling bin out front warns, in Italian, no “spazzatura,” no garbage.

Hundreds of people every day come to Amboy, California, here to bask in the weirdness of a place where the motel, school, and church are deserted, and there’s a half a corporate jet left out back for added post-apocalyptic vibes.