Hi there! Welcome to the newly redesigned Future Perfect newsletter. We're so excited to bring you more of what you love from us — thoughtful reporting on the world's biggest problems, finger-on-the-pulse recommendations, and ways we all can do good (better). Let us know what you think by hitting reply to this email, and if you love it, share it with a friend. They can also sign up here! —Izzie Ramirez, deputy editor |
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Hey readers,
The US Agency for International Development officially closed its doors last week. After six decades as the world's leading humanitarian provider, the agency has been absorbed by the State Department as a shell of its former self, with the bulk of its programs shuttered.
Founded in 1961, the agency was instrumental in eradicating smallpox, helped slash the rate of maternal mortality by 40 percent worldwide, and connected tens of millions to HIV/AIDS retroviral therapies each year. According to a new study in The Lancet, which measured the effectiveness of the agency's programs from 2001 to 2021, USAID saved the lives of over 91 million people at a cost of about $100 per taxpayer per year. Out of the many programs our taxes fund, USAID made up well under 1 percent of the federal budget.
Now, the Trump administration's cuts have left over 60,000 tons of food aid languishing in storage, thousands of clinical trial participants with experimental drugs and devices still in their bodies, and dozens of aid workers stranded in conflict zones. Researchers warn the cuts could cause 14 million preventable deaths around the world by 2030. All in the name of efficiency.
But USAID's demise is part of a larger retreat. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects global development assistance will plummet by up to 17 percent in 2025, following last year's 9 percent drop. That's a loss of $56 billion from 2023. Eleven countries, mostly in Europe, plan to slash spending on foreign aid in the year to come. This comes at a moment where breakthrough technologies, like the first approved malaria treatment for babies, could make a real difference if supplemented with meaningful logistical and financial support.
So, what hope is there? The good news is not every country is letting go of foreign aid. Spain, Ireland, and South Korea all plan to spend more on it next year. Despite the downturn, far more money flows to development today than a few decades ago. And most Americans still do support foreign aid, especially when they know how little it costs. |
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| Sara Herschander Future Perfect Fellow |
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| Sara Herschander Future Perfect Fellow |
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When I'm not thinking about factory farming, I'm obsessing over how housing in America got so effed up. There are lots of ways to tell the story of our national housing affordability crisis — wonky terms like supply, demand, zoning, and NIMBYs are often invoked, and I unpack all of them in this new feature. But I wanted to tell that story through a lens that all Americans can understand: suburbia, the cul-de-sac dream that has defined our culture, policy, and politics for nearly a century. The housing crisis that is at the root of so many of our national problems is not just a technical policy failure but a logical, painful endpoint of that cherished American ideal.
The spark for this story came when I encountered a startling new research finding: Rates of housing construction in booming Sunbelt cities like Phoenix and Dallas, long praised for their affordability and friendliness to building, have plummeted over the last couple decades, inching them toward the prohibitive prices of Los Angeles or Boston. Our national dependence on suburban sprawl helps explain why that's happening.
This subject is a personal one for me, having lived literally my entire life in apartments, always a bit outside the suburban blueprint. I wrote this because I was hungry for a richer vision of what suburbs could look like. To solve our housing crisis, I argue in the piece, Americans will have to fundamentally rethink what the suburb is and what it could become. —Marina Bolotnikova, deputy editor |
America's fastest-growing suburbs are about to get very expensive |
Sprawl made suburbia affordable. Now it's breaking it. Here's what a new vision of the suburbs could look like. |
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CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT... |
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| Title: Future Perfect fellow
What I cover: Global health and philanthropy
Past life: I started my career in global education but have spent the past few years as a reporter, covering philanthropy, labor, tech, and social movements.
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I've always had a minor fixation with stop-motion animation. So it wasn't surprising that this weekend I fell into a rabbit hole watching short videos of The Tiny Chef Show, a kids' series about vegan cooking that sparked a mass hysteria and viral crowdfunding campaign after being canceled by Nickelodeon. It's as if you took the earnestness of A24's Marcel the Shell With Shoes On and paired it with the optimism and green hue of a Gumby rerun. It resonated with enough grown-ups that the show seems on the verge of being saved — though its creators have clarified that, for now, Tiny Chef remains unemployed. |
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| ⭐ ONE WAY TO DO GOOD THIS WEEK |
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Today's edition was edited and produced by Izzie Ramirez. We'll see you Friday! |
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