Teal Arcadi is a historian of American democracy. The following essay is adapted from his book, “Concrete Leviathan: The Interstate Highway System and State Building in Modern America.” As a Cornell undergraduate, he drew on his family’s roots in Fayetteville to write a thesis on the long-term impacts of the Erie Canal on Syracuse and Upstate New York — a project that propelled him into a career focused on studying infrastructure, government and social outcomes. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and resides in New Jersey. ...read more read less