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Every day, New Yorkers receive a staggering 2.3 million packages at their doorstop. Nearly 90 percent of those goods snake through the city on trucks that cause traffic congestion and pollute the air on their way. To address the problem, global architecture firm KPF is asking an ambitious question: “What if New York was designed for the perfect delivery?” [Photo: KPF] The answer, which is outlined in the firm’s latest book, Connective Urbanism New York, features towering distribution hubs, drones, and a hyper-connected logistics network that encompasses the city’s rails and waterways. KPF presents its solution as a provocative speculation designed to start a dialogue about the city’s delivery problem, but it is more grounded in reality than it seems. “We didn’t want to have speculations that were just dreams,” says Bruce Fisher, head of KPF Urban, and a co-author of the book. In a place as dense as New York Cityboth in terms of population and building stockgood logistics are everything. As Fisher writes in the book: “A citys economic potential is tied to its logistic efficiency.” An aerial view of the lower Manhattan waterfront, ca. 1932. [Photo: NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images] Highways centralized transport. Can it be diversified? There once was a time when most goods arrived in New York City via train and freight ships. Before the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, nearly all domestic freight destined for New York terminated in New Jersey, then crossed the river on cargo ferries or “carfloats” outfitted with rail tracks. A train barge staging area in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Ca. 1920. [Photo: Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History] By the 1950s, propelled by the Interstate Highway System, trains gave way to trucks on improved roads, while freight shifted to shipping containers that required larger open spaces in New Jersey. The city shifted to trucks too, and its distribution infrastructure changed with it. Now, KPF wants to diversify the way goods move throughout the city, beyond trucking. The architects envision a distribution network system that utilizes New Yorks existing freight rail lines, its extensive coastline, and its abundant navigable waterways. [Image: KPF] Goods would first arrive in the city by a combination of trains and ships sailing into regional ports like Red Hook, in Brooklyn, or Elizabeth, in New Jersey. [Image: KPF] Then, they would make their way into strategically located distribution hubs, from where automated cranes and robots would collect the cargo and distribute it to logistic centers scattered around the city. From there, goods would be delivered using a variety of micromobility options like electric bikes, un-manned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones. A train barge, ca. 2016. [Photo: Matt Clare/Flickr] Some freight deliveries arealready being re-routed to waterways If the architects’ proposal evokes a scene out of a sci-fi movie, that’s because it requires the kind of infrastructure that we can seemingly only imagine from the future. But for Fisher, every idea related in the book is based on real-life examples. For decades, the New York Department of Sanitation has used the city’s waterways to transport trash and recycling from six strategically located facilities to landfills outside the city. Most recently, in December 2025, the New York Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) launched its Blue Highways program, which aims to remove a significant portion of freight deliveries off crowded streets and onto the citys 520 miles of navigable waterways. A DutchX cargo bike loads onto a ferry, ca. 2023. [Photo: DutchX] Essentially, it redesigns the city’s package distribution system. Through the program, which is now in a pilot phase, the city will transport 300 to 400 small household parcels per day from a ferry onto five electric pedal-assist cargo bikes, which will complete the final delivery phase. It’s currently being tested within a designated delivery area within Manhattan. If the pilot is successful, the city plans to expand the program. “Waterways are the new highways in New York City,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez in a press release at the time. “New Yorks waterways built this citynow theyre helping us create a cleaner, safer, and smarter way to deliver the goods New Yorkers rely on.” In its efforts to reduce truck traffic and curb congestion, NYC DOT has also launched a pilot ‘Microhubs’ program with dedicated spaces for truck operators to transfer deliveries onto more sustainable modes of transportation, like e-cargo bikes, handcarts, and electric sprinter vans, for last mile deliveries. Old distribution hubs may provide new ideas for the present For now, these pilots are small in scale and scope, and none of them extend past the boundaries of Manhattan. In order to scale the operations into the outer boroughs, the city would likely need to build distribution hubs and logistic centers like the ones in KPF’s proposal. In its speculation, KPF proposes a cylindrical building akin to the Marina City towers in Chicago. The building, which would be ideally located near a port or a train station, features a continuous ramp for EVs and delivery robots, docking stations for UAVs, and a rooftop launchpad for large cargo drones. The Starrett-Lehigh Building. ca. 1932. [Photo: Irving Underhill/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images] The idea for such integrated buildings isn’t all that new. In the 1930s, New York City’s StarrettLehigh Building once served as a “drive-in building”: railcars came directly into the ground floor, their freight was transferred to trucks, which were then lifted in special elevators onto designated floors with loading bays. This allowed goods to be loaded, stored, repackaged, and redistributed without using curbside space. Today, the Starrett-Lehigh building has been transformed into a modern office building. But new buildings are emerging to help cities improve freight logistics. In April 2025, a multi-story industrial development opened in Long Island City, Queens. Spanning 1 million square feet across six stories, Borden Industrial sports concrete ramps that trucks can use to load and unload on upper levels. The building appears focused on truck logistics, but as Fisher points out, it’s also located near active rail yards, and it borders Newtown Creek, a major industrial waterway for barges and freight. One could imagine that, if enough buildings like Borden Industrial opened in strategic locations across New York City, KPF’s vision would quickly enter the realm of reality. And as cities around the world rush to meet their zero-emission goals, many are already experimenting with alternative delivery solutions. For a decade now, France’s larger supermarket chain, Franprix, has transported goods by barge to its 300 Parisian stores by barge. And this year, new electric cargo barges, stocked with e-cargo bikes, are set to deliver regular mail to Paris suburbs. Meanwhile, Peachtree Corners, a small city northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, has become a testbed for a curious experiment in the shape of one-mile underground tube network that delivers sandwiches and small packages between suburban microhubs. Drone deliveries are also growing increasingly popular, with companies like Amazon and Walmart leading the charge in the U.S. These experiments show that the pieces are already in place in many cities around the world, and New York wouldn’t be pioneering something radicalit would be joining a growing movement. But in the end, it will all come down to political will and private investment. “Someone has to be the real defender of [these models], pushing them forward,” says Fisher. “Until there’s a overall regulatory system that allows for it, it can’t really happen.”
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E-Commerce
r/Bald is a popular subreddit where those who are losing their hair or have recently taken the plunge and shaved their heads can find support, encouragement, and a general ego-boost from the community’s 1.4 million weekly visitors. Created in 2011, the subreddit has 23,000 weekly contributions. Often, they follow the format of men uploading photos of their receding hairlines. Is it time? reads one recent post. The answer, in almost every instance, is yes. The before-and-after transformations are overwhelmingly met with enthusiasm and welcoming responses. Might as well go all the way one recent post read. 10 years younger my dude! replied one Redditor. Another commented: Came here to say the same! You reverse aged. Another poster shared their bald transformation, titled I have arrived. They added: Finally joined the bald squad. Got told I looked like I had a comb over and knew it was time. One response read: Man its so crazy how much better every dude who posts here looks bald. Another agreed, Seriously! It’s glow up after glow up on this subbreddit!. Pattern baldness affects roughly 80% of men and nearly half of women over the course of their lives. Still, its hard to believe this is the same internet inhabited by snark pages and trolls whose sole intent is to tear others apart based on their appearances and insecurities. The r/bald subreddit is an example of wholesome masculine body-positivity. every post is a guy showing his clearly-past-the-point-of-no-return thinning hair & asking is it time?” and the top reply is always this image,” one X user wrote in a recent post that has been viewed more than 11 million times. Everyone get more bald now!!! another demanded. It is not only men active on the subreddit. Women also openly share their bald journey, whether that be through choice or as a result of undergoing chemotherapy treatment or autoimmune diseases such as alopecia, which affects up to 30 million women in the U.S. alone. Others are simply lurking for the wholesome content. I’m not anywhere near balding but I still love this sub so much, one Reddit user commented. One of the most positive places on the internet, another wrote. At a time where hair transplants are becoming more and more common, r/Balds philosophy is instead to embrace bald and strive to make the world a more bald-friendly place. Were often sold the idea that bald is bad. Thats bullshit, reads the subs description. It is natural. And it is nothing to be ashamed ofhere well support each other and learn to take pride in our baldness.
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Honda says its refreshed H logo represents a second founding for the company. Honda 2.0, then, is designed to look like it’s from the future. The Japanese automaker announced on January 13 that it’s adopting a new logo across its automobile business. The company has had some sort of an H mark since 1963, and its new mark is wider than its last, with stems that slant outward as they move upward. The logo is now freed from being inside a frame, and Honda compares it to “two outstretched hands.” It’s meant to evoke a shape, not just a letter. From left: Hondas previous logo; the new version [Images: Honda] As the automotive industry electrifies and upgrades its tech, automakers including Audi, Kia, and Tesla have turned to design tropes from 1980s science fiction to make their logos look futuristic, with stenciled, wide letters that evoke the typography of films like Bladerunner and Back to the Future II. Other brands, such as BMW, Mazda, and VW, have gone flat. All in all, these changes signal a great rebranding during a pivotal moment for the industry. [Photo: Honda] Honda now joins the sweep of rebrands with a logo that wouldn’t look out of place on the outside of a spaceship or worn as a communication badge by an alien admiral in a sci-fi film. It’s a clean, simple mark that’s versatile enough to work well at small scales, on digital screens, in a single color, or as a car badge. Honda first unveiled the mark in 2024 in dramatic fashion. It launched at that year’s Consumer Electronics Show on a pair of Honda 0 Series concept carsthe Saloon and Space-Hubthat look like they were built for the 2025 movie Tron: Ares and NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon, respectively. [Image: Honda] The company announced on January 13 that the mark seen on those concept cars will now be used as the symbol to represent the business. It will appear across touchpoints such as dealership locations, communication initiatives, and motorsports events. Next year, it will finally begin appearing on Honda EVs and hybrid-electric vehicles. This is a future-forward rebrand that’s years in the making. “The automobile market is currently undergoing a major transformation with electrification and application of intelligent technologies,” Honda said in a statement. “The new H mark will represent the ‘second founding,’ which Honda is pursuing with strong determination to lead the way.” Known for models like the Accord, Civic, and CR-V, Honda is a brand associated with affordability and value. With its sci-fi-ready new logo, though, the company is aiming for a brand identity that drivers will soon associate with traits like transformation and advancement.
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