Theres a financial crisis hiding in plain sight: the American household vehicle fleet. Families are hemorrhaging money through car payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance, depreciation, parking, and registration. In many cases, this adds up to more than a familys annual savingsor the cost of sending a child to college every four years.
Car ownership is nearly universal in the U.S., with 92% of households owning at least one vehicle. About 37% own two cars, and 22% own three or more. In 2023, the average annual cost to own and operate a new vehicle climbed to $12,182. For households with two cars, thats nearly $25,000 per yeara recurring expense that too often escapes scrutiny.
Now consider how those vehicles are used. In 2021, more than half of all daily trips in the U.S. were under three miles. Nearly 30% were less than one mile. Were paying a fortune to go nowhere. The rise of remote and hybrid work has amplified the mismatch between cost and use. As of 2023, more than a third of U.S. employees worked remotely full time, with another 41% following hybrid work models. Pew Research Center reported that almost half of remote workers would look for a new job if their employer took this option off the table.
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Cars are parked roughly 95% of the time, depreciating as they collect pollen and bird droppings. And yet they demand monthly payments, insurance, fuel, and maintenance. The long-distance commute has been the primary reason for every working member of the family needing their own vehicle, but our travel habits have changed.
What if owning fewer cars was a sign of more success?
A growing number of families are experimenting with a car-lite lifestyleditching the second or third car and rediscovering local travel through bikes, transit, or walking. Theyre not doing it to make a statement. Theyre doing it to make ends meetand to take back their time. At the center of this quiet shift: the e-bike.
Part appliance and part liberation machine, e-bikes are redefining what a vehicle can be. School drop-offs, grocery runs, commutes, and social visitstrips once assumed to require a carare increasingly accomplished with battery-assisted pedaling. Terrain and distance fade as barriers.
In 2022, more than 1.1 million e-bikes were sold in the U.S., nearly quadruple the number from 2019. E-bikes now account for over 20% of total bicycle sales in the U.S., and they represented 63% of revenue growth in the bike industry between 2019 and 2023. Bikes have become robust enough to handle everything from kid pickups to bulk grocery runs, and more cities are creating rebate programs to accelerate adoption.
Replacing a car with an e-bike can save a household $120,000 over a decadeenough to wipe out debt, fund a college account, or boost retirement savings. And as infrastructure improves with more protected lanes, slower streets, and secure parking, the e-bike can graduate from practical to preferable.
What if you spent less on movement and more on meaning?
What if streets worked as well for bikes as they do for cars?
What if getting around town felt like a lifestyle upgrade?
For too long, success was measured by how many vehicles fit in your driveway. But those cars arent status symbolstheyre financial sinkholes. Remember, more than half of Americas car trips are under a few miles. If you’re going broke to go nowhere, the journey needs a new map.
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As President Donald Trumps tariff policies and the global trade war began to dominate headlines, early attention focused on the impact on consumers, investors, and major companies like Apple and Ford. Since then, the spotlight has also turned to Main Street, where small and midsize businessesincluding manufacturers and industrial suppliersare increasingly feeling the strain.
Analyses from the Institute for Supply Management and other industry sources confirm that costly fractures are now spreading across Americas supply chains, threatening the nations manufacturing revival. Small and midsize businessesresponsible for half of U.S. industrial production and three-quarters of the jobs in supply chain industriesare bearing the brunt of rising costs and ongoing economic uncertainty. These firms are central to Americas industrial future, yet little has been done to help them adapt, let alone boom, as President Trump promised during his campaign.As an example, in March The Wall Street Journal featured Tormach, a small Wisconsin-based machine-tool manufacturer, in a story on tariffs. In 2024, the firm relocated production to Mexico after learning about then-President-elect Trumps planned tariffs on Chinese goods, only later to be hit by tariffs targeting Mexico. “We can’t just move factories overnight,” said CEO Daniel Rogge, reflecting the reality for many smaller manufacturers: Sweeping policy changes impose added costs and uncertainty they are not equipped to absorb.
Mounting pressure
This dynamic is playing out across the country, even if its effects are mixed (some types of firms can benefit). As tariffs upend global supply chains, small manufacturers in the U.S. are under mounting pressurenow with fears of recession, business failure, and job lossesjust as their contributions are becoming more critical.
Significant tariff increases and renegotiated trade deals are part of the Trump administrations announced strategy to expand a “production economy” in America. But without greater predictability and solutions to help our suppliers adapt, the new protectionism threatens to derail a manufacturing revival already underwayone driven by geopolitics and catalytic national investments.
Since 2021, the federal government has earmarked trillions of dollars to upgrade U.S. infrastructure, revitalize domestic manufacturing, and strengthen supply chains. These public investments underpin a modern industrial policy projected, by J.P. Morgan Private Bank in 2023, to catalyze $1 trillion in private investment over the next decade and encourage global companies to reshore operations. Small and midsize businesses are at the heart of this reindustrialization, as demand surges for the critical goods and services they supply.
A strategic tool
As trade policy experts and economic analysts have noted in recent months, tariffs can be a strategic tool when used selectively alongside other industrial policiessheltering local firms, or at least buying them time to become more competitive, by making imported products from foreign competitors more expensive. Former President Joe Bidens targeted tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and solar technology, for instance, were designed to align with public investment and regulation in his administrations clean energy agenda.
However, blanket tariffs against established trading partners challenge U.S. businesses in established global supplier networks, a central feature of integrated trade and distributed production. Manufacturers relying on cross-border supply chains report rising input prices and declining orders, which compound as components enter and leave U.S.-based factories. Further, the Trump administrations approach has fueled widespread confusion, driving record-high small business uncertainty and declining optimism and investment, according to surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business.
High stakes
For small and midsize manufacturers in the U.S., the stakes are existential. One important reason is that these firms continue to face structural barriers that stifle their performance. Research from the McKinsey Global Institute shows that small businesses in U.S. manufacturing are less productive than their larger peers and international counterparts, thanks to challenges in accessing financing, skilled labor, technologies, and new markets. Tariffs, without adaptive support, threaten to deepen this divide.
Historically, the U.S. has responded to disruptive trade transitions with adjustment programs designed to support domestic firms and workers. In particular, Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms (TAAF) was created in 1962 to help companies adapt to rising imports and global competition. But this program and others like it have proven too limited in scope and largely out of step with modern economic demands.
Moreover, the Trump administrations move to cut, and then restore, funding for proven small manufacturer programs, such as the Manufacturing Extension Partnership led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, along with court-contested funding freezes on infrastructure and other federal investments, further complicates efforts to rebuild Americas industrial base.
A Marshall Plan
As the Trump administration advances a sweeping protectionist agenda and other nations and trading blocs respond, the United States needs a modern trade adjustment strategy that matches the scale of our reindustrialization and the realities of shifting geopolitics. Following the November election, we called for a Marshall Plan for Small Businessa strategic framework designed to build the base of small and midsized firms and talent needed to drive Americas new industrial economy. The plan has three mutually reinforcing pillars, each validated by working examples in diverse regions of the country: 1) equip small businesses with the tools, services, and advisory support to navigate shifting markets, adopt modern technologies, and scale operations; 2) launch a small-business-centered workforce development model capable of training and mobilizing skilled workers across high-demand occupations; and 3) expand access to flexible financing tailored to the unique needs of small businesses and especially suppliers, supporting investments in research and development, equipment, workforce, and strategic growth opportunities such as mergers and acquisitions.
Since his first term, President Trump has promised a manufacturing revival. Delivering on that demands a forward-looking agenda that gives small and midsize manufacturers and their workersthe backbone of Americas productive capacitythe tools, talent, and capital they need to survive and grow. This was important unfinished business before the U.S. launched a trade war. Now its an imperative.
LUBBOCK Every winter, after the sea of cotton has been harvested in the South Plains and the ground looks barren, technicians with the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District check the water levels in nearly 75,000 wells across 16 counties.
For years, their measurements have shown what farmers and water conservationists fear mostthe Ogallala Aquifer, an underground water source thats the lifeblood of the South Plains agriculture industry, is running dry.
Thats because of a century-old law called the rule of capture.
The rule is simple: If you own the land above an aquifer in Texas, the water underneath is yours. You can use as much as you want, as long as its not wasted or taken maliciously. The same applies to your neighbor. If they happen to use more water than you, then thats just bad luck.
To put it another way, landowners can mostly pump as much water as they choose without facing liability to surrounding landowners whose wells might be depleted as a result.
Following the Dust Bowland to stave off catastrophestate lawmakers created groundwater conservation districts in 1949 to protect what water is left. But their power to restrict landowners is limited.
The mission is to save as much water possible for as long as possible, with as little impact on private property rights as possible, said Jason Coleman, manager for the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District. How do you do that? Its a difficult task.
A 1953 map of the wells in Lubbock County hangs in the office of the groundwater district. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
Rapid population growth, climate change, and aging water infrastructure all threaten the states water supply. Texas does not have enough water to meet demand if the state is stricken with a historic drought, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency that manages Texas water supply.
Lawmakers want to invest in every corner to save the states water. This week, they reached a historic $20 billion deal on water projects.
High Plains Underground Water District General Manager Jason Coleman stands in the districts meeting room on May 21 in Lubbock. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
But no one wants to touch the rule of capture. In a state known for rugged individualism, politically speaking, reforming the law is tantamount to stripping away freedoms.
There probably are opportunities to vest groundwater districts with additional authority, said Amy Hardberger, director for the Texas Tech University Center for Water Law and Policy. I dont think the political climate is going to do that.
State Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, and Rep. Cody Harris, a Palestine Republican, led the effort on water in Austin this year. Neither responded to requests for comment.
Carlos Rubinstein, a water expert with consulting firm RSAH2O and a former chairman of the water development board, said the rule has been relied upon so long that it would be near impossible to undo the law.
I think its better to spend time working within the rules, Rubinstein said. And respect the rule of capture, yet also recognize that, in and of itself, it causes problems.
Even though groundwater districts were created to regulate groundwater, the law effectively stops them from doing so, or they risk major lawsuits. The state water plan, which spells out how the states water is to be used, acknowledges the shortfall. Groundwater availability is expected to decline by 25% by 2070, mostly due to reduced supply in the Ogallala and Edwards-Trinity aquifers. Together, the aquifers stretch across West Texas and up through the Panhandle.
By itself, the Ogallala has an estimated three trillion gallons of water. Though the overwhelming majority in Texas is used by farmers. Its expected to face a 50% decline by 2070.
Groundwater is 54% of the states total water supply and is the states most vulnerable natural resource. Its created by rainfall and other precipitation, and seeps into the ground. Like surface water, groundwater is heavily affected by ongoing droughts and prolonged heat waves. However, the state has more say in regulating surface water than it does groundwater. Surface water laws have provisions that cut supply to newer users in a drought and prohibit transferring surface water outside of basins.
Historically, groundwater has been used by agriculture in the High Plains. However, as surface water evaporates at a quicker clip, cities and businesses are increasingly interested in tapping the underground resource. As Texas population continues to grow and surface water declines, groundwater will be the prize in future fights for water.
In many ways, the damage is done in the High Plains, a region that spans from the top of the Panhandle down past Lubbock. The Ogallala Aquifer runs beneath the region, and its faced depletion to the point of no return, according to experts. Simply put: The Ogallala is not refilling to keep up with demand.
Its a creeping disaster, said Robert Mace, executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. It isnt like you wake up tomorrow and nobody can pump anymore. Its just happening slowly, every year.
[Image: Yuriko Schumacher/The Texas Tribune]
Groundwater districts and the law
The High Plains Water District was the first groundwater district created in Texas.
Over a protracted multi-year fight, the Legislature created these new local government bodies in 1949, with voter approval, enshrining the new stewards of groundwater into the state Constitution.
If the lawmakers hoped to embolden local officials to manage the troves of water under the soil, they failed. There are areas with groundwater that dont have conservation districts. Each groundwater districts has different powers. In practice, most water districts permit wells and make decisions on spacing and location to meet the needs of the property owner.
The one thing all groundwater districts have in common: They stop short of telling landowners they cant pump water.
In the seven decades since groundwater districts were created, a series of lawsuits have effectively strangled groundwater districts. Even as water levels decline from use and drought, districts still get regular requests for new wells. They wont say no out of fear of litigation.
The field technician coverage area is seen in Nathaniel Bibbs office at the High Plains Underground Water District. Bibbs is a permit assistant for the district. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
You have a host of different decisions to make as it pertains to management of groundwater, Coleman said. That list has grown over the years.
The possibility of lawsuits makes groundwater districts hesitant to regulate usage or put limitations on new well permits. Groundwater districts have to defend themselves in lawsuits, and most lack the resources to do so.
A well spacing guide is seen in Nathaniel Bibbs office. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
The law works against us in that way, Hardberger, with Texas Tech University, said. It means one large tool in our toolbox, regulation, is limited.
The most recent example is a lawsuit between the Braggs Farm and the Edwards Aquifer Authority. The farm requested permits for two pecan orchards in Medina County, outside San Antonio. The authority granted only one and limited how much water could be used based on state law.
It wasnt an arbitrary decision. The authority said it followed the statute set by the Legislature to determine the permit.
Thats all they were guaranteed, said Gregory Ellis, the first general manager of the authority, referring to the water available to the farm.
The Braggs family filed a takings lawsuit against the authority. This kind of claim can be filed when any level of governmentincluding groundwater districtstakes private property for public use without paying for the owners losses.
Braggs won. It is the only successful water-related takings claim in Texas, and it made groundwater laws murkier. It cost the authority $4.5 million.
I think it should have been paid by the state Legislature, Ellis said. Theyre the ones who designed that permitting system. But that didnt happen.
An appeals court upheld the ruling in 2013, and the Texas Supreme Court denied petitions to consider appeals. However, the states supreme court has previously suggested the Legislature could enhance the powers of the groundwater districts and regulate groundwater like surface water, just as many other states have done.
While the laws are complicated, Ellis said the fundamental rule of capture has benefits. It has saved Texas legal system from a flurry of lawsuits between well owners.
If they had said Yes, you can sue your neighbor for damaging your well, where does it stop? Ellis asked. Everybody sues everybody.
Coleman, the High Plains districts manager, said some people want groundwater districts to have more power, while others think they have too much. Well owners want restrictions for others, but not on them, he said.
Youre charged as a district with trying to apply things uniformly and fairly, Coleman said.
Cant reverse the past
Two tractors were dropping seeds around Walt Hagoods farm as he turned on his irrigation system for the first time this year. He didnt plan on using much water. Its too precious.
The cotton farm stretches across 2,350 acres on the outskirts of Wolfforth, a town 12 miles southwest of Lubbock. Hagood irrigates about 80 acres of land, and prays that rain takes care of the rest.
Walt Hagood drives across his farm on May 12, in Wolfforth. Hagood utilizes dry farming, a technique that relies on natural rainfall. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
We used to have a lot of irrigated land with adequate water to make a crop, Hagood said. We dont have that anymore.
The High Plains is home to cotton and cattle, multi-billion-dollar agricultural industries. The success is in large part due to the Ogallala. Since its discovery, the aquifer has helped farms around the region spring up through irrigation, a way for farmers to water their crops instead of waiting for rain that may not come. But as water in the aquifer declines, there are growing concerns that there wont be enough water to support agriculture in the future.
At the peak of irrigation development, more than 8.5 million acres were irrigated in Texas. About 65% of that was in the High Plains. In the decades since the irrigation boom, High Plains farmers have resorted to methods that might save water and keep their livelihoods afloat. Theyve changed their irrigation systems so water is used more efficiently. They grow cover crops so their soil is more likely to soak up rainwater. Some use apps to see where water is needed so its not wasted.
A furrow irrigation is seen at Walt Hagoods cotton farm. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
Farmers who have not changed their irrigation systems might not have a choice in the near future. It can take a week to pump an inch of water in some areas from the aquifer because of how little water is left. As conditions change underground, they are forced to drill deeper for water. That causes additional problems. Calcium can build up, and the water is of poorer quality. And when the water is used to spray crops through a pivot irrigation system, it’s more of a humidifier as water quickly evaporates in the heat.
According to the groundwater district’s most recent management plan, 2 million acres in the district use groundwater for irrigation. About 95% of water from the Ogallala is used for irrigated agriculture. The plan states that the irrigated farms afford economic stability to the area and support a number of other industries.
The state water plan shows groundwater supply is expected to decline, and drought wont be the only factor causing a shortage. Demand for municipal use outweighs irrigation use, reflecting the states future growth. In Region O, which is the South Plains, water for irrigation declines by 2070 while demand for municipal use rises because of population growth in the region.
Coleman, with the High Plains groundwater district, often thinks about how the aquifer will hold up with future growth. There are some factors at play with water planning that are nearly impossible to predict and account for, Coleman said. Declining surface water could make groundwater a source for municipalities that didnt depend on it before. Regions known for having big, open patches of land, like the High Plains, could be attractive to incoming businesses. People could move to the country and want to drill a well, with no understanding of water availability.
The state will continue to grow, Coleman said, and all the incoming businesses and industries will undoubtedly need water.
We could say Well, its no ones fault. We didnt know that factory would need 20,000 acre-feet of water a year, Coleman said. Its not happening right now, but whats around the corner?
Coleman said this puts agriculture in a tenuous position. The region is full of small towns that depend on agriculture and have supporting businesses, like cotton gins, equipment and feed stores, and pesticide and fertilizer sprayers. This puts pressure on the High Plains water district, along with the two regional water planning groups in the region, to keep agriculture alive.
Districts are not trying to reduce pumping down to a sustainable level, said Mace with the Meadows Foundation. And I dont fault them for that, because doing that is economic devastation in a region with farmers.
Hagood, the cotton farmer, doesnt think reforming groundwater rights is the way to solve it. Whats done is done, he said.
Our U.S. Constitution protects our private property rights, and thats what this is all about, Hagood said. Any time we have a regulation and people are given more authority, it doesnt work out right for everybody.
Rapid population growth, climate change, and aging water infrastructure all threaten the states water supply. [Photo: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune]
What can be done
The state water plan recommends irrigation conservation as a strategy. Its also the least costly water management method.
But that strategy is fraught. Farmers need to irrigate in times of drought, and telling them to stop can draw criticism.
In Eastern New Mexico, the Ogallala Land and Water Conservancy, a nonprofit organization, has been retiring irrigation wells. Landowners keep their water rights, and the organization pays them to stop irrigating their farms. Landowners get paid every year as part of the voluntary agreement, and they can end it at any point.
Ladona Clayton, executive director of the organization, said they have been criticized, with their efforts being called a war and land grab. They also get pushback on why the responsibility falls on farmers. She said its because of how much water is used for irrigation. They have to be aggressive in their approach, she said. The aquifer supplies water to the Cannon Air Force Base.
We dont want them to stop agricultural production, Clayton said. But for me to say it will be the same level that irrigation can support would be untrue.
There is another possible lifeline that people in the High Plains are eyeing as a solution: the Dockum Aquifer. Its a minor aquifer that underlies part of the Ogallala, so it would be accessible to farmers and ranchers in the region. The High Plains Water District also oversees this aquifer.
If it seems too good to be truethat the most irrigated part of Texas would just so happen to have another abundant supply of water flowing underneathits because theres a catch. The Dockum is full of extremely salty brckish water. Some counties can use the water for irrigation and drinking water without treatment, but its unusable in others. According to the groundwater district, a test well in Lubbock County pulled up water that was as salty as seawater.
Rubinstein, the former water development board chairman, said there are pockets of brackish groundwater in Texas that haven’t been tapped yet. It would be enough to meet the needs on the horizon, but it would also be very expensive to obtain and use. A landowner would have to go deeper to get it, then pump the water over a longer distance.
That costs money, and then you have to treat it on top of that, Rubinstein said. But, it is water.
Landowners have expressed interest in using desalination, a treatment method to lower dissolved salt levels. Desalination of produced and brackish water is one of the ideas that was being floated around at the Legislature this year, along with building a pipeline to move water across the state. Hagood, the farmer, is skeptical. He thinks whatever water they move could get used up before it makes it all the way to West Texas.
There is always brackish groundwater. Another aquifer brings the chance of history repeatingif the Dockum aquifer is treated so its water is usable, will people drain it, too?
Hagood said there would have to be limits.
Disclosure: Edwards Aquifer Authority and Texas Tech University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Millennial culture has officially made it to the history books.
A history teacher recently turned her sixth grade classroom into a museum for millennial paraphernalia with the help of her Gen Alpha students’ parents. Judging by the comments on the teachers TikTok video, millennials arent sure whether to be thrilled or horrified.
Malinda Nichols (@hipsterhistorywithmrsn) posted the video earlier this month, highlighting historical artifacts from the 1990s for her students benefit. Out on display were flip phones, Nintendos, and disposable cameras. Boyz II Men and Beanie Babies also made an appearance. The collection in here has easily got to be worth 10s of dollars, she joked. But the nostalgic value is truly priceless.
In a second video, with almost 800,000 views on TikTok, she showed the students’ reactions to the museum of the millennial, as she called it. Students played POGS, a popular playground game played with flat circular cardboard milk caps, and attempted to figure out how buttons worked on an old-school Nokia.
The parents also made a surprise appearance for a history lesson straight from the horses mouth. Students’ questions included: “How did you make plans with your friends before texting?” and “What commercials or jingles do you still remember from when you were younger?” Finally, students were tasked with creating their own AOL screen names to round out the full millennial experience.
I created the museum of the millennial lesson for my sixth grade students to show them that history isnt just found in dusty textbooksits alive, personal, and being made every day, Nichols told Fast Company. By inviting parents to share artifacts from their childhood in the 80s and 90s, students saw firsthand how the people who raised them, including myselfIm a proud millennial and parent of a sixth graderhelped pioneer the digital age, even if we didnt realize it at the time because for us it was just living our lives.
For a much-maligned generation (those born roughly between 1981 and 1996), it was a welcome change to see their culture finally getting the recognition it deserves. For too long, millennials have been forced to listen as older generations chastised them for overspending on avocado toast, before they became sandwiched by a younger generation who roasted them for their unironic love of Harry Potter and penchant for burger joints.
Nicholss video also brought with it the horrifying realization for millennials that their childhood is now the subject of history lessons. Historical Artifacts? one wrote. I feel attacked.
Given their abundance in American backyards, gardens and highway corridors these days, it may be surprising to learn that white-tailed deer were nearly extinct about a century ago. While they currently number somewhere in the range of 30 million to 35 million, at the turn of the 20th century, there were as few as 300,000 whitetails across the entire continent: just 1% of the current population.
This near-disappearance of deer was much discussed at the time. In 1854, Henry David Thoreau had written that no deer had been hunted near Concord, Massachusetts, for a generation. In his famous Walden, he reported:
One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew here.
But what happened to white-tailed deer? What drove them nearly to extinction, and then what brought them back from the brink?
As a historical ecologist and environmental archaeologist, I have made it my job to answer these questions. Over the past decade, Ive studied white-tailed deer bones from archaeological sites across the eastern United States, as well as historical records and ecological data, to help piece together the story of this species.
Precolonial rise of deer populations
White-tailed deer have been hunted from the earliest migrations of people into North America, more than 15,000 years ago. The species was far from the most important food resource at that time, though.
Archaeological evidence suggests that white-tailed deer abundance only began to increase after the extinction of megafauna species like mammoths and mastodons opened up ecological niches for deer to fill. Deer bones become very common in archaeological sites from about 6,000 years ago onward, reflecting the economic and cultural importance of the species for Indigenous peoples.
Despite being so frequently hunted, deer populations do not seem to have appreciably declined due to Indigenous hunting prior to AD 1600. Unlike elk or sturgeon, whose numbers were reduced by Indigenous hunters and fishers, white-tailed deer seem to have been resilient to human predation. While archaeologists have found some evidence for human-caused declines in certain parts of North America, other cases are more ambiguous, and deer certainly remained abundant throughout the past several millennia.
Human use of fire could partly explain why white-tailed deer may have been resilient to hunting. Indigenous peoples across North America have long used controlled burning to promote ecosystem health, disturbing old vegetation to promote new growth. Deer love this sort of successional vegetation for food and cover, and thus thrive in previously burned habitats. Indigenous people may have therefore facilitated deer population growth, counteracting any harmful hunting pressure.
More research is needed, but even though some hunting pressure is evident, the general picture from the precolonial era is that deer seem to have been doing just fine for thousands of years. Ecologists estimate that there were roughly 30 million white-tailed deer in North America on the eve of European colonizationabout the same number as today.
A 16th-century engraving depicts Indigenous Floridians hunting deer while disguised in deerskins. [Photo: Theodor de Bry/DEA Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images]
Colonial-era fall of deer numbers
To better understand how deer populations changed in the colonial era, I recently analyzed deer bones from two archaeological sites in what is now Connecticut. My analysis suggests that hunting pressure on white-tailed deer increased almost as soon as European colonists arrived.
At one site dated to the 11th to 14th centuries (before European colonization) I found that only about 7% to 10% of the deer killed were juveniles.
Hunters generally dont take juvenile deer if theyre frequently encountering adults, since adult deer tend to be larger, offering more meat and bigger hides. Additionally, hunting increases mortality on a deer herd but doesnt directly affect fertility, so deer populations experiencing hunting pressure end up with juvenile-skewed age structures. For these reasons, this low percentage of juvenile deer prior to European colonization indicates minimal hunting pressure on local herds.
However, at a nearby site occupied during the 17th centuryjust after European colonizationbetween 22% and 31% of the deer hunted were juveniles, suggesting a substantial increase in hunting pressure.
This elevated hunting pressure likely resulted from the transformation of deer into a commodity for the first time. Venison, antlers and deerskins may have long been exchanged within Indigenous trade networks, but things changed drastically in the 17th century. European colonists integrated North America into a trans-Atlantic mercantile capitalist economic system with no precedent in Indigenous society. This applied new pressures to the continents natural resources.
Deerparticularly their skinswere commodified ad sold in markets in the colonies initially and, by the 18th century, in Europe as well. Deer were now being exploited by traders, merchants and manufacturers desiring profit, not simply hunters desiring meat or leather. It was the resulting hunting pressure that drove the species toward its extinction.
20th-century rebound of white-tailed deer
Thanks to the rise of the conservation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white-tailed deer survived their brush with extinction.
Concerned citizens and outdoorsmen feared for the fate of deer and other wildlife, and pushed for new legislative protections.
The Lacey Act of 1900, for example, banned interstate transport of poached game andin combination with state-level protectionshelped end commercial deer hunting by effectively de-commodifying the species. Aided by conservation-oriented hunting practices and reintroductions of deer from surviving populations to areas where they had been extirpated, white-tailed deer rebounded.
The story of white-tailed deer underscores an important fact: Humans are not inherently damaging to the environment. Hunting from the 17th through 19th centuries threatened the existence of white-tailed deer, but precolonial Indigenous hunting and environmental management appear to have been relatively sustainable, and modern regulatory governance in the 20th century forestalled and reversed their looming extinction.
Elic Weitzel, Peter Buck Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institution
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Few issues in the U.S. today are as controversial as diversity, equity, and inclusioncommonly referred to as DEI.
Although the term didnt come into common usage until the 21st century, DEI is best understood as the latest stage in a long American project. Its egalitarian principles are seen in Americas founding documents, and its roots lie in landmark 20th-century efforts such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and affirmative action policies, as well as movements for racial justice, gender equity, disability rights, veterans, and immigrants.
These movements sought to expand who gets to participate in economic, educational, and civic life. DEI programs, in many ways, are their legacy.
Critics argue that DEI is antidemocratic, that it fosters ideological conformity, and that it leads to discriminatory initiatives, which they say disadvantage white people and undermine meritocracy. Those defending DEI argue just the opposite: that it encourages critical thinking and promotes democracyand that attacks on DEI amount to a retreat from long-standing civil rights law.
Yet missing from much of the debate is a crucial question: What are the tangible costs and benefits of DEI? Who benefits, who doesnt, and what are the broader effects on society and the economy?
As a sociologist, I believe any productive conversation about DEI should be rooted in evidence, not ideology. So lets look at the research.
Who gains from DEI?
In the corporate world, DEI initiatives are intended to promote diversity, and research consistently shows that diversity is good for business. Companies with more diverse teams tend to perform better across several key metrics, including revenue, profitability, and worker satisfaction.
Businesses with diverse workforces also have an edge in innovation, recruitment, and competitiveness, research shows. The general trend holds for many types of diversity, including age, race, and ethnicity, and gender.
A focus on diversity can also offer profit opportunities for businesses seeking new markets. Two-thirds of American consumers consider diversity when making their shopping choices, a 2021 survey found. So-called inclusive consumers tend to be female, younger, and more ethnically and racially diverse. Ignoring their values can be costly: When Target backed away from its DEI efforts, the resulting backlash contributed to a sales decline.
But DEI goes beyond corporate policy. At its core, its about expanding access to opportunities for groups historically excluded from full participation in American life. From this broader perspective, many 20th-century reforms can be seen as part of the DEI arc.
Consider higher education. Many elite U.S. universities refused to admit women until well into the 1960s and 1970s. Columbia, the last Ivy League university to go co-ed, started admitting women in 1982. Since the advent of affirmative action, women havent just closed the gender gap in higher educationthey outpace men in college completion across all racial groups. DEI policies have particularly benefited women, especially white women, by expanding workforce access.
Similarly, the push to desegregate American universities was followed by an explosion in the number of Black college studentsa number that has increased by 125% since the 1970s, twice the national rate. With college gates open to more people than ever, overall enrollment at U.S. colleges has quadrupled since 1965. While there are many reasons for this, expanding opportunity no doubt plays a role. And a better-educated population has had significant implications for productivity and economic growth.
The 1965 Immigration Act also exemplifies DEIs impact. It abolished racial and national quotas, enabling the immigration of more diverse populations, including from Asia, Africa, southern and eastern Europe, and Latin America. Many of these immigrants were highly educated, and their presence has boosted U.S. productivity and innovation.
Ultimately, the U.S. economy is more profitable and productive as a result of immigrants.
What does DEI cost?
While DEI generates returns for many businesses and institutions, it does come with costs. In 2020, corporate America spent an estimated $7.5 billion on DEI programs. And in 2023, the federal government spent more than $100 million on DEI, including $38.7 million by the Department of Health and Human Services and another $86.5 million by the Department of Defense.
The government will no doubt be spending less on DEI in 2025. One of President Donald Trumps first acts in his second term was to sign an executive order banning DEI practices in federal agenciesone of several anti-DEI executive orders currently facing legal challenges. More than 30 states have also introduced or enacted bills to limit or entirely restrict DEI in recent years. Central to many of these policies is the belief that diversity lowers standards, replacing meritocracy with mediocrity.
But a large body of research disputes this claim. For example, a 2023 McKinsey & Company report found that companies with higher levels of gender and ethnic diversity will likely financially outperform those with the least diversity by at least 39%. Similarly, concerns that DEI in science and technology education leads to lowering standards arent backed up by scholarship. Instead, scholars are increasingly pointing out that disparities in performance are linked to built-in biases in courses themselves.
That said, legal concerns about DEI are rising. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice have recently warned employers that some DEI programs may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Anecdotal evidence suggests that reverse discrimination claims, particularly from white men, are increasing, and legal experts expect the Supreme Court to lower the burden of proof needed by complainants for such cases.
The issue remains legally unsettled. But while the cases work their way through the courts, women and people of color will continue to shoulder much of the unpaid volunteer work that powers corporate DEI initiatives. This pattern raises important equity concerns within DEI itself.
What lies ahead for DEI?
Peoples fears of DEI are partly rooted in demographic anxiety. Since the U.S. Census Bureau projected in 2008 that non-Hispanic white people would become a minority in the U.S by the year 2042, nationwide news coverage has amplified white fears of displacement.
Research indicates many white men experience this change as a crisis of identity and masculinity, particularly amid economic shifts such as the decline of blue-collar work. This perception aligns with research showing that white Americans are more likely to believe DEI policies disadvantage white men than white women.
At the same time, in spite of DEI initiatives, women and people of color are most likely to be underemployed and living in poverty regardless of how much education they attain. The gender wage gap remains stark: In 2023, women working full time earned a median weekly salary of $1,005 compared with $1,202 for menjust 83.6% of what men earned. Over a 40-year career, that adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings. For Black and Latina women, the disparities are even worse, with one source estimating lifetime losses at $976,800 and $1.2 million, respectively.
Racism, too, carries an economic toll. A 2020 analysis from Citi found that systemic racism has cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion since 2000. The same analysis found that addressing these disparities could have boosted Black wages by $2.7 trillion, added up to $113 billion in lifetime earnings through higher college enrollment, and generated $13 trillion in business revenue, creating 6.1 million jobs annually.
In a moment of backlash and uncertainty, I believe DEI remains a vital if imperfect tool in the American experiment of inclusion. Rather than abandon it, the challenge now, from my perspective, is how to refine it: grounding efforts not in slogans or fear, but in fairness and evidence.
Rodney Coates is a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at Miami University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
When the computer or phone youre using right now blinks its last blink and you drop it off for recycling, do you know what happens?
At the recycling center, powerful magnets will pull out steel. Spinning drums will toss aluminum into bins. Copper wires will get neatly bundled up for resale. But as the conveyor belt keeps rolling, tiny specks of valuable, lesser-known materials such as gallium, indium, and tantalum will be left behind.
Those tiny specks are critical materials. Theyre essential for building new technology, and theyre in short supply in the U.S. They could be reused, but theres a problem: Current recycling methods make recovering critical minerals from e-waste too costly or hazardous, so many recyclers simply skip them.
Sadly, most of these hard-to-recycle materials end up buried in landfills or get mixed into products like cement. But it doesnt have to be this way. New technology is starting to make a difference.
As demand for these critical materials keeps growing, discarded electronics can become valuable resources. My colleagues and I at West Virginia University are developing a new technology to change how we recycle. Instead of using toxic chemicals, our approach uses electricity, making it safer, cleaner, and more affordable to recover critical materials from electronics.
How much e-waste are we talking about?
Americans generated about 2.7 million tons of electronic waste in 2018, according to the latest federal data. Including uncounted electronics, the U.S. recycles only about 15% of its total e-waste, suggests a survey by the United Nations.
Even worse, nearly half the electronics that people in Northern America sent to recycling centers end up shipped overseas. They often land in scrapyards, where workers may use dangerous methods like burning or leaching with harsh chemicals to pull out valuable metals. These practices can harm both the environment and workers health. Thats why the Environmental Protection Agency restricts these methods in the U.S.
The tiny specks matter
Critical minerals are in most of the technology around you. Every phone screen has a super-thin layer of a material called indium tin oxide. LEDs glow because of a metal called gallium. Tantalum stores energy in tiny electronic parts called capacitors.
All of these materials are flagged as high risk on the U.S. Department of Energys critical materials list. That means the U.S. relies heavily on these materials for important technologies, but their supply could easily be disrupted by conflicts, trade disputes, or shortages.
Right now, just a few countries, including China, control most of the mining, processing, and recovery of these materials, making the U.S. vulnerable if those countries decide to limit exports or raise prices.
These materials arent cheap, either. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that gallium was priced between $220 to $500 per kilogram in 2024. Thats 50 times more expensive than common metals like copper, at $9.48 per kilogram in 2024.
Revolutionizing recycling with microwaves
At West Virginia Universitys Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering, I and materials scientist Edward Sabolsky asked a simple question: Could we find a way to heat only specific parts of electronic waste to recover these valuable materials?
If we could focus the heat on just the tiny specks of critical minerals, we might be able to recycle them easily and efficiently.
The solution we found: microwaves.
This equipment isnt very different from the microwave ovens you use to heat food at home, just bigger and more powerful. The basic science is the same: Electromagnetic waves cause electrons to oscillate, creating heat.
In our approach, though, were not heating water molecules like you do when cooking. Instead, we heat carbon, the black residue that collects around a candle flame or car tailpipe. Carbon heats up much faster in a microwave than water does. But dont try this at home; your kitchen microwave wasnt designed for such high temperatures.
In our recycling method, we first shred the electronic waste, mix it with materials called fluxes that trap impurities, and then heat the mixture with microwaves. The microwaves rapidly heat the carbon that comes from the plastics and adhesives in the e-waste. This causes the carbon to react with the tiny specks of critical materials. The result: a tiny piece of pure, sponge-like metal about the size of a grain of rice.
This metal can then be easily separated from leftover waste using filters.
So far, in our laboratory tests, we have successfully recovered about 80% of the gallium, indium, and tantalum from e-waste, at purities between 95% and 97%. We have also demonstrated how it can be integrated with existing recycling processes.
Why the Department of Defense is interested
Our recycling technology got its start with help from a program funded by the Defense Departments Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Many important technologies, from radar systems to nuclear reactors, depend on these special materials. While the Department of Defense uses less of them than the commercial market, they are a national security concern.
Were planning to launch larger pilot projects next to test the method on smartphone circuit boards, LED lighting parts, and server cards from data centers. These tests will help us fine-tune the design for a bigger system that can recycle tons of e-waste per hour instead of just a few pounds. That could mean producing up to 50 pounds of these critical minerals per hour from every ton of e-waste processed.
If the technology works as expected, we believe this approachcould help meet the nations demand for critical materials.
How to make e-waste recycling common
One way e-waste recycling could become more common is if Congress held electronics companies responsible for recycling their products and recovering the critical materials inside. Closing loopholes that allow companies to ship e-waste overseas, instead of processing it safely in the U.S., could also help build a reserve of recovered critical minerals.
But the biggest change may come from simple economics. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials.
Terence Musho is an associate professor of engineering at West Virginia University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Until last October, Argentinian musical duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were more or less a regional act. Known for their experimental blend of Latin trap, pop, and rap, the pair had a fanbase, but still werent cracking more than 3,000 daily streams across services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Within a week, they shot up 4,700%hitting 222,000 daily streamsaccording to exclusive data firm Luminate, which powers the Billboard charts. Suddenly Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were global pop stars.
What changed? On Oct. 4, the pair were featured in a Tiny Desk Concert, part of NPRs 17-year-old video series featuring musicians performing stripped-down sets behind an office desk in the cramped Washington, D.C. headquarters of the public broadcaster.
In the concert video, the artists play five songs from their debut album Bao Maria, which came out last April. Pacos raspy voice emerges from underneath a puffy blue trapper hat while Ca7riel sports an over-the-top pout and a vest made of stitched-together heart-shaped plush toys. The pair sing entirely in Spanish, backed by their Argentinian bandmates (sporting shirts screenprinted with their visas) and an American horn section. The duos performance quickly took off across the internet. Within five days, it had racked up more than 1.5 million views on YouTube, and hit 11 million in little more than a month. It also reverberated across social media: the NPR Music Instagram post garnering nearly 900,000 likes, and TikToks clips garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
In a year that featured Tiny Desk performances from buzzy stars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, as well as established acts like Chaka Khan and Nelly Furtado, Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos concert was the most-watched of 2024. It currently sits at 36 million views.
That virality translated to an influx of bookings for the duo, including a performance at Coachella in April, and upcoming slots at Glastonbury in June, FujiRock Japan in July, and Lollapalooza and Outside Lands in August. Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos global tour includes sold-out dates at Mexico’s 20,000-capacity Palacio de los Deportes and Chile’s 14,000-seat Movistar Areanaand was previewed by an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April.
Through Tiny Desk, we’ve noticed media approaching us, promoters being very interested in offering their spaces and festivals, and many media outlets opening doors to show us to the world, says Jonathan Izquierdo, the bands Spain-based tour manager who began working with the duo shortly after the Tiny Desk Concert debuted. Weve managed to sell out summer arena shows in record time and we’re constantly adding new concerts. Promoters are knocking on our doors to get the Tiny Desk effect.
Bobby Carter [Photo: Fenn Paider/courtesy NPR]
Tiny Desk, Big Influence
The Tiny Desk effect is something Bobby Carter, NPR Tiny Desk host and series producer, has seen firsthand. Carter has been at NPR for 25 years, including the past 11 on the Tiny Desk team. He took the reins when Bob Boilen, the longtime All Songs Considered host who launched Tiny Desk in 2008, retired in 2023.
The serieswhich now has more than 1,200 videosbegan as an internet-first way for Boilen to showcase performances from musicians that were more intimate than what happens in bigger concert venues. The first installment, featuring folk artist Laura Gibson, went up on YouTube. Today, the concerts are posted on the NPR site with a writeup and credits, as well as YouTube, where NPR Music has 11 million followers. NPR Music also clips installments on Instagram, where it has 3 million followers.
In the early days, NPR staff reached out to touring bands to secure bookings. Acts coming through DC could often be cajoled into filming an installment before heading out to their venues for that nights sound check. Now, musicians come to DC just for the chance to record in NPRs offices.
We dont have to worry about tours anymore, Carter says. Labels and artists are willing to come in solely for a Tiny Desk performance. They understand the impact that a really good Tiny Desk concert can have on an artists career.
Early on, the stripped-down nature of the Tiny Deskartists cant use any audio processing or voice modulationlent itself to rock, folk, and indie acts. But a 2014 concert with T-Pain, in which the famously autotune-heavy singer unveiled an impressive set of pipes, showed how artists from a broader array of genres could shine behind the Tiny Desk.
Everyone knows at this point that theyre going to have to do something different in our space, Carter says. Its a bigger ask for hip-hop acts and electronic acts, but most artists now understand how important it can be if they nail it.
Carter highlights rapper Doechii as an artist who overhauled her sound for her Tiny Desk concert in December. Doechiis all-female backing band used trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and bass to transform songs from her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal for the live setting. If you listen to the recorded version of her music, its nothing like what you saw in that Tiny Desk, Carter says.
Clips of Doechiis Tiny Desk virtuosity lit up social media, introducing the swamp princess to new fans. The concert even inspired a viral parody, with writer-director-comedian Gus Heagary pretending to be an NPR staffer watching the performance.
Reimagining Old Favorites
It isnt just emerging acts that totally revamp their sound for a Tiny Desk opportunity. Established artists like Usher, Justin Timberlake, and Cypress Hill have followed T-Pains lead and used NPRs offices to showcase reimagined versions of some of their most popular songs. When Juvenile recorded his installment in June 2023, he was backed by horns and saxophones, a violin and cello, and John Batiste on melodica. The New Orleans rapper played an acoustic version of Back That Azz Up twice at the audiences requestthe first encore in the series history.
I love what has happened with hip hop [on Tiny Desk], Carter says. He explains that artists now approach the concert with the mindset: I have to really rethink what Ive been doing for however long Ive been doing it, and present it in a whole new way.
Tiny Desk has also helped musicians like Juvenile, gospel artist Marvin Sapp, and percussionist Sheila E to reach new audiences while reminding listeners theyre still making music. Were helping artists to re-emerge, Carter says, tapping into legacy acts and evergreen artists [to help] breathe new life into their careers.
In many ways, Tiny Desk now occupies a niche once filled by MTV Unpluggedbut for the generation that has replaced cable with YouTube and streaming.
Maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, all of our favorite artists had this watershed moment in terms of a live performance, Carter says. Back in the day it was MTV Unplugged. SNL is still doing their thing. But when you think about the generation now that lives on YouTube, some of these Tiny Desk performances are going to be the milestone that people point to when it comes to live performances.
Building a Diverse Audience
When Carter talks about Tiny Desk concerts reaching a new generation of listeners, its not conjecture. He notes that the NPR Music YouTube channels 11 million subscribers are as young and diverse as it gets. Its almost half people of color [and] much younger than the audience that listens to NPR on air, which is an audience NPR has been trying to tap for a long time, he says.
That diversity informs some of the special series that Tiny Desk produces. The Juvenile video was part of Carters second run of concerts recorded for Black Music Month, in June. Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos video was tied to El Tiny, a Latin-focused series that debuts during Latin Heritage Month (from mid September to mid October) and is programmed by Tiny Desk producer and Alt.Latino host AnaMaria Sayer.
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s tour manager, Izquierdo, has worked with artists featured in the series before. He says Tiny Desk is crucial for Latin American artists trying to break through. I’ve realized that for U.S. radio, Latin music benefits from Tiny Desk, he says.
The Tiny Desk audiences broad demographics are also increasingly reflected in its broader programming. Bad Bunnys April installment took his reggaeton-inspired songs from recent album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos to their acoustic roots, using an array of traditional Puerto Rican, Latin American, and Caribbean instruments, such as the cuatro puertorriqueo, tiple, güicharo, and bongos. [Our] audience informs a whole lot of what we do, Carter says. I get so many pointers from YouTube comments like Have you heard of this artist? Were watching all that stuff because it helps us stay sharp.
Tiny Desk heard round the world
With a strong global audience, Tiny Desk has been expanding into Asia. In 2023, NPR struck a licensing deal with South Korean Telecom LG U+ and production company Something Special to produce Tiny Desk Korea for television. Last year, NPR inked a deal with the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) to launch Tiny Desk Concerts Japan. Were really expanding in terms of global reach, Carter says.
Here in the States, Carter and Sayer recently launched Tiny Desk Radio, a series that will revisit some of the series notable installments, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from their productions and playing the audio from the concerts Our engineers put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we sound great, Carter says. I hear it a lotpeople tell me they prefer an artists Tiny Desk over anything.
That’s something Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso clearly have on their mind as they navigate the Tiny Desk effect and a new level of recognition (their daily streams haven’t dipped below 50,000 a day since the beginning of the year). The duo released an EP in February, Papota, which features four new songs, plus the recorded versions of their pared-down Tiny Desk performances. They also released a short film that recreates their Tiny Desk performancethis time in a Buenos Aires diner.
One of the themes of the EP is the pair wrestling with the implications of their viral success. On the song Impostor, Ca7riel asks Y ahora que vamos hacer?/El tiny desk me jodio” (What do we do now? Tiny Desk fucked me up.)
It’s an overstatement, but an acknowledgment that the path theyre now on ran directly through the NPR offices.
New York City’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is falling apart. Built between 1946 and 1964, the urban highway runs 12.1 miles through the heart of the two boroughs to connect on either end with the interstate highway systema relic of midcentury car-oriented infrastructure, and a prime example of the dwindling lifespan of roads built during that time.
The degradation is most visibleand most pressingin a section running alongside Brooklyn Heights known as the triple cantilever. This 0.4-mile section, completed in 1954, is unique among U.S. highways in that it juts out from the side of a hill and stacks the two directions of traffic on balcony-like decks, one slightly overhanging the other. A third level holds a well-loved park, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
This unusual layer cake of a freeway was a marvel of engineering in its day, though not without controversy. Masterminded by Robert Moses, the citys all-powerful, often ruthless city planner for more than four decades, the roadway bisects working-class and immigrant neighborhoods that grapple with the health and environmental fallout to this day.
Like the reputation of the man who built it, the triple cantilever has aged poorly. Its narrow width, (33.5 feet for the roadway in either direction) has made all but the most basic maintenance incredibly difficult, and its 71-year-old structure is constantly battered by the ever heavier automobiles and trucks. Designed to accommodate around 47,000 vehicles per day, it now carries more than three times that amount. Deteriorating deck joints and failing steel-reinforced concrete have led many to worry the triple cantilever is on the verge of collapse. An expert panel warned in 2020 that the triple cantilever could be unusable by 2026.
[Photo: Alex Potemkin/Getty Images]
The mounting concern comes amid a 50-year decline in direct government spending on infrastructure in the U.S., according to a recent analysis by Citigroup. Simply maintaining existing infrastructure is a challenge, the report notes. Meanwhile, the American Society of Civil Engineers grade for the countrys infrastructure has improved, from a D+ in 2017 to a C in 2025. Now even private credit firms are circling: As reported in Bloomberg, Apollo Global Management estimates that a boom in infrastructure deals help could grow the private debt market up to a staggering $40 trillion.
Independent urban designer Marc Wouters has an idea on how to fix BQEs cantilever. Hes been working on it for years. “My process is that I always interview people in the community before I do any drawings,” he says. So I really have listened to pretty much everybody over the past few years.” Unsolicited and developed in his own spare time, Wouters has designed an alternative for the triple cantilever that he named the BQE Streamline Plan.
BQE Streamline Plan [Image: courtesy Marc Wouters | Studios/2025]
His concept, based on decades of experience in urban planning, infrastructure, and resilience projects in communities across the country, is relatively simple: extend the width of the two traffic-bearing cantilevers and add support beams to their outside edge, move both directions of traffic onto four lanes on the first level, and turn the second level into a large freeway cap park. Instead of major rebuilding efforts, Wouters’s proposal is more of a reinforcement and expansion, with a High Line-style park plopped on top. Though he’s not an engineer, Wouters is confident that his design would shift enough strain off the existing structure to allow it to continue functioning for the foreseeable future. (What actual engineers think remains to be seen.)
“What I’ve done is come up with a plan that happens to be much less invasive, faster to build, a lot cheaper, and it encompasses a lot of what the community wants,” he says. “Yet it still handles the same capacity as the highway does right now.”
So what will it take for this outsider’s idea to be considered a viable design alternative?
This idea had been brewing in his mind for years. Wouters, who lives near the triple cantilever section of the BQE in Brooklyn Heights, has followed the highway’s planning process for more than a decade.
As complex infrastructure projects go, this one is particularly convoluted. The BQE is overseen by both the state of New York and New York City, among others, with the city in charge of the 1.5-mile section that includes the triple cantilever. This dual ownership has complicated the management of the highway and its funding. The city and the state have launched several efforts over the years to reimagine the highways entire length.
In winter 2018, the citys Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) released two proposals to address the ailing cantilever. Not seeing what they wanted from either one, Brooklyn Heights Association, a nonprofit neighborhood group, retained Wouters and his studio to develop an alternative design. He suggested buildin a temporary parallel bypass that would allow a full closure and repair of the triple cantilever. That proposal, along with competing ideas developed under the previous mayoral administration, went by the wayside in 2022, when the latest BQE redesign process commenced.
Wouters found himself following yet another community feedback and planning process for the triple cantilever. The ideas being proposed by the city’s DOT this time around included a plan that would chew into the hillside that currently supports the triple cantilever to move the first tier of traffic directly underneath the second, and add a large girding structure on its open end to hold it all up.
Other options included reshaping the retaining wall that currently holds up the triple cantilever, moving traffic below grade into a wide tunnel, or tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding from scratch. Each would be time-consuming and disruptive, and many of them cut into another well-loved public space immediately adjacent to the triple cantilever, Brooklyn Bridge Park. None of these options has anything close to unanimous support. And any of them will cost more than $1 billiona price tag that hits much harder after the Federal Highway Administration rejected an $800 million grant proposal for fixing the BQE back in early 2024.
BQE Streamline Plan [Image: courtesy Marc Wouters | Studios/2025]
Wouters is no highway zealot. In fact, he’s worked on a project heading into construction in Syracuse that will replace an underutilized inner-city highway with a more appropriately sized boulevard and developable land. But he felt sure there was a better way forwarda concept that would work as well in practice as on paper.
“I just kept going to meetings and waiting to see what I thought was a progressive solution,” Wouters says. Unimpressed and frustrated, he set out to design it himself.
Wouters released the Streamline Plan in March. The concept quickly gathered interest, receiving a flurry of local news coverage. He has since met with various elected officials to discuss it.
But as elegant as Wouters’s concept may be, some stakeholders remain unconvinced that the city should be going all in on a reinterpretation of the triple cantilever. What might be more appropriate, critics say, is to make necessary fixes now to keep the triple cantilever safe and functional, and to spend more time thinking about whether this section of highway is even what the city needs in the long term.
A group of local organizations is calling for a more comprehensive reconsideration of the BQE under the premise that its harms may be outnumbering its benefits. Launched last spring, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Environmental Justice Coalition wants any planning for the future of the BQE to include efforts to address its health and environmental impacts on neighboring communities and to seek an alternative that reconnects communities that have been divided by the corridor.
One member of this coalition is the Riders Alliance, a nonprofit focused on improving public transit in New York. Danny Pearlstein, the group’s policy and communications director, says implementing a major redesign of the triple cantilever would just reinforce car dependency in a place that’s actually well served by public transit. The environmental justice coalition’s worry is that rebuilding this one section in a long-term fashion could make it harder for change across the length of the entire BQE and could increase the environmental impact the highway has on the communities that surround it.
“This is not just one neighborhood. This is communities up and down the corridor that don’t resemble each other very much in income or background who are united and are standing together for something that’s transformative, rather than doubling down on the old ways,” Pearlstein says.
[Photo: NYC DOT]
Lara Birnback is executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, representing a neighborhood of roughly 20,000 people. Her organization, which worked directly with Wouters in the past, is circumspect about his latest concept. “It’s certainly more interesting and responsive to the kinds of things that the comunity has been asking for when thinking about the BQE. It’s more of those things than we’ve seen from any of the designs that New York City DOT has presented to us through their engagement process,” she says. “But at the end of the day, it’s still a way of preserving more or less the status quo of the BQE as a major interstate highway running through the borough.”
She argues it makes more sense to patch up the triple cantilever and use the extra years of service that buys to do a more radical rethinking of the BQE’s future. (For example, one 2020 proposal by the Brooklyn-based architecture studio Light and Air proposed a simple intervention of installing buttresses on the open-air side of the triple cantilever, propping it up with a relatively small addition of material.)
“We really strongly encourage the city to move forward immediately with a more short-term stabilization plan for the cantilever, with repairs that would last, for example, 20 to 25 years rather than spending billions and billions of dollars rebuilding it for the next 100 years,” Birnback says.
Birnback says a major rebuilding plan like the one Wouters is proposingfor all its community benefitscould end up doing more harm to the city. “I think going forward now with a plan that both embeds the status quo and most likely forecloses on the possibility of real transformation across the corridor is a mistake,” she says.
NYC DOT expects to begin its formal environmental review process this year, laying the necessary groundwork for deciding on a plan for what to do with the triple cantilever, either for the short term or the long term. The environmental process will evaluate all concepts equally, according to DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone, who notes that the department is required to review and respond to all feedback that comes in through that process.
There is technically nothing holding back Wouters’s proposal from being one of the alternatives considered. And he may have some important political support to help make that happen. Earlier this month, Brooklyn’s Community District 2 board formally supported the plan. They are calling for the city’s transportation department to include it in the BQE’s formal environmental review process when it starts later this year.
[Photo: Sinisa Kukic/Getty Images]
Wouters argues that his proposal solves the pressing structural problems of the triple cantilever while also opening resources to deal with the highway’s big picture challenges. “The several hundred million dollars of savings is now funding that could go to other parts of the BQE. And there are other parts that are really struggling,” he says. “I’m always thinking about the whole length and about all these other communities, not just this one.”
With a new presidential administration and a mayoral primary election in June, what happens with the triple cantilever is very much up in the air. But if the environmental review process begins as planned this year, it only makes sense for every option to fall under consideration. What gets builtor torn down, or reconstructed, or reinterpretedcould reshape part of New York City for generations.
