I have worked as a journalist and op-ed contributor on hundreds of articles for more than a dozen outlets, including The New York Times, City Lab, and Planning. My work is primarily concerned with issues related to city planning, transportation, and housing. For my work, I conduct interviews, perform quantitative analysis of Census and related data, and generate maps through GIS. My clips are below. In addition, I have been quoted extensively in the media about my research.
Jump to a specific outlet: The Appeal | San Francisco Chronicle | The New York Times | Streetsblog | CNN | Planning | Global Planning Educators Interest Group | Grist | Dissent | Crain’s Chicago Business | Travel + Leisure | City Lab | Urban Affairs Forum | The Frisc | Urban Land | Living Cities | American Planning Association | International Finance Corporation | Freakonomics | Next City | The Infrastructurist | The News and Observer
Slate
- Daniel Denvir and Yonah Freemark. “Just Build the Homes: Public housing is ready to make a comeback” (op-ed), in Slate, May 22, 2023.
Shelterforce
- Luisa Godinez-Puig, Gabriella Garriga, and Yonah Freemark. “Federal and State Dollars Could Be Used to Force Change in Exclusionary Towns” (op-ed), in Shelterforce, March 23, 2023.
The Hill
- Yonah Freemark. “How to ensure Biden’s climate-focused transportation plans turn out sustainable and equitable” (op-ed), in The Hill, April 1, 2021.
The Appeal
- Yonah Freemark. “Congress Failed to Make Cash Assistance Universal. Now Local Governments Must Step Up” (op-ed). in The Appeal, March 31, 2020.
- Yonah Freemark. “The Coronavirus Crisis Means We Need Cash Assistance For All” (op-ed) in The Appeal, March 19, 2020.
San Francisco Chronicle
- Yonah Freemark. “How the French are fixing a housing crisis comparable to California’s” (op-ed) in San Francisco Chronicle, December 26, 2019.
The New York Times
- Yonah Freemark. “How Safer Streets Can Thwart Terrorists” (op-ed) in The New York Times, November 3, 2017.
- Yonah Freemark. “How to Build a Streetcar that Works” (op-ed) in The New York Times, February 10, 2016.
- Yonah Freemark and Lawrence Vale. “Illogical Housing Aid” (op-ed) in The New York Times, October 31, 2012.
- Yonah Freemark. “How Cuomo Could Learn from Rockefeller” (Letter to the editor) in The New York Times, August 18, 2015.
Streetsblog
I wrote the Getting Transit Right series, an effort to catalogue best practices among transit systems in the U.S. through analytical and interview-based articles. The series is funded by TransitCenter. Recent articles include the following:
- Intro, 16 February 2017
- Atlanta: {Existing transit, 23 February 2017}, {Land use, 2 March 2017}, {Recent investments, 9 March 2017}, {Future projects, 2 June 2017}
- Indianapolis: {Existing transit, 9 June 2017}, {Land use, 22 June 2017}, {Recent investments, 30 June 2017}, {Network redesign, 11 July 2017}
- Los Angeles: {Existing transit, 23 August 2017}, {Land use, 15 September 2017}
I have also written the following articles for Streetsblog:
- “Too Little, Too Late? A Decade of Transit Investment in the U.S.” 8 January 2020 (from The Transport Politic).
- “We Need an Ambitious Transpo Bill. So How Are We Going to Pay for it?” 29 April 2009
- “What’s Wrong with SAFETEA-LU – and Why the Next Bill Must be Better,” 27 April 2009
CNN
- “Why high-speed rail is safe, smart” on CNN, July 26, 2013
Planning
- “Vive Rive Gauche” and “The Grand Scheme” in Planning Magazine, February 2010
Grist
- “Build Housing, Not Transportation” 9 May 2017
Dissent
- “Cars, Highways, and the Poor,” Dissent, Winter 2010
Crain’s Chicago Business
- “Before you complain about the CTA again, read this,” Crain’s Chicago Business, October 21, 2014
Travel + Leisure
- “In Japan, Transit is Light Years Ahead,” Travel + Leisure, 2016
- “How Christchurch is Reimagining the Cityscape,” Travel + Leisure, 2016
City Lab (formerly The Atlantic Cities)
- “Effective Zoning Reform Isn’t as Simple as It Seems,” with Lydia Lo. 24 May 2022.
- “A Transportation Platform for Chicago’s Next Mayor,”
- “Why can’t the United States build a high-speed rail system?” 13 August 2014. Also selected for publishing in The Best of CityLab’s The Future of Transportation e-book, January 2015.
- “Have U.S. Light Rail Systems Been Worth the Investment?” 10 April 2014
- “Why More U.S. Cities Need to Embrace Bus-Rapid Transit,” 25 February 2014
- “Why Telecommuting Really Matters,” 4 February 2014
- “The Catch-22 of Red-Light Cameras,” 28 October 2011
- “Has the Renaissance of Downtowns Been Overhyped?” 30 September 2011
- “State Infrastructure Banks: The Solution to America’s Infrastructure Woes?” 2 January 2012
Urban Affairs Forum
- “Upzoning Chicago: Impacts of a Zoning Reform on Property Values and Housing Construction,” March 29, 2019
The Frisc
- “Housing Arguments Over SB 50 Distort My Upzoning Study. Here’s How to Get Zoning Changes Right,” May 22, 2019
Urban Land: The Magazine of the Urban Land Institute
- “Developing More Sustainable, Connected Port Zone,” 30 November 2015
- ”With Better Funding, City Buses Could Fill Transit Voids,” 2 September 2015
- “Streetcars: Transportation First, then Economic Development,” 10 June 2015
Living Cities
American Planning Association
- “Solving Chicago’s Affordable Housing Conundrum (with Marisa Novara),” 27 June 2016
International Finance Corporation (IFC) Handshake
- “Speeding toward tomorrow: PPPs in high-speed rail,” Issue 7, October 2012
Freakonomics
Next City (formerly Next American City)
- Yonah Freemark and Andrew Trueblood. “How to Reform Zoning to Allow More Density Around Transit – And Meet Housing Demand,” (op-ed), February 7, 2023.
- “Without New Regulations, Self-Driving Cars Could Make Our Transportation System Even Worse,” November 14, 2022.
I was employed as the writer of the Grassroutes series throughout 2010, in which I traveled from city to city throughout the U.S. to understand what smaller cities were doing to improve their transportation systems from the ground-up.
- “As the South and West Grow, the Urban Agenda Should Adjust Accordingly,” 23 December 2010
- “Tracking the Rise of Inner City Household Incomes Reveals an Increasing Spatial Divide,” 16 December 2010
- “Abandoning Long-Term Revenue for a Quick Fix,” 10 December 2010
- “The Administration’s Big Streetcar Push Could Implode with New Congress,” 7 December 2010
- “In Remembering a Long-Abandoned Project, Nostalgia for Grand Plans,” 1 December 2010
- “Congress Threatens to Restore Unequal Tax Treatment Between Car Drivers and Transit Users,” 19 November 2010
- “Finding a Market for the Electric Car,” 17 November 2010
- “A Renovated Station for Chicago is the Latest in the Privatization of Infrastructure,” 10 November 2010
- “Integration in Chicago – On the Train, if Not in Housing,” 9 November 2010
- “The Safety Problem,” 29 October 2010
- “Transit-Friendly Neighbors, Removed from Transit-Friendly Neighborhoods?” 22 October 2010
- “Bringing Transit Decision-Making Back into the Political Sphere,” 20 October 2010
- “HUD Unveils Winners of Sustainable Communities Awards,” 15 October 2010
- “As Suburban Poverty Grows, U.S. Fails to Respond Adequately,” 12 October 2010
- “When Planning is Inadequately Comprehensive,” 7 October 2010
- “If High-Speed Rail Brings Economic Aid to Struggling Cities, Will it Subdue Local Culture?” 30 September 2010
- “Have Streetcars Adequately Demonstrated their Development-Generation Potential?” 27 September 2010
- “Is Effective Decision Making Possible at the Regional Scale?” 21 September 2010
- “Envisioning a Different Kind of Region,” 16 September 2010
- “Opposition to a Bus Rapid Transit System is More than Just NIMBYism,” 10 September 2010
- “Look out? Building a BRT Line in California is no Simple Matter,” 9 September 2010
- “If Transit Investment Produces Jobs, Why Isn’t There More of It?” 2 September 2010
- “New Orleans Could be Up for Radical Change with the Removal of a Highway,” 1 September 2010
- “Clarksdale’s Blues Museum Lays the Foundation for the City’s Future,” 23 August 2010
- “Driven Over By I-69,” 19 August 2010
- “For an Increasingly Urban Nashville, the Waterfront is the Place for Change,” 16 August 2010
- “Knoxville’s Market Square Shows Pedestrian-Only Spaces Can Work, Too,” 11 August 2010
- “Raleigh’s Streetscape Renewal, Part of an Integrated Effort to Transform Downtown,” 4 August 2010
- “Raleigh’s Downtown Upgrade Pans Out,” 2 August 2010
- “Finding Appropriate Tools to Mitigate the Construction Process,” 27 July 2010
- “When Transit Strays from Its Social Goals,” 14 July 2010
- “When You’re Building Green, Don’t Forget the Transportation Component,” 8 July 2010
- “Can Commuter Vans Stand in for Traditional Transit Along Lightly Traveled Routes?” 2 July 2010
- “Maryland Promotes Development Around Transit,” 21 June 2010
- “Massive Urban Development Projects Put in Question the Necessity of Easy Transit Connections,” 17 June 2010
- “Looking Back: Urbanism in John Lindsay’s New York,” 14 June 2010
- “Leveraging Existing Transit Assets for New Transit-Oriented Development,” 8 June 2010
- “When You Get the Chance to Build a New Subway Station, Take Full Advantage,” 4 June 2010
- “Summer Streets Gain Prominence Nationwide,” 1 June 2010
- “Just How Much More Security do we Need in Transit?” 25 May 2010
- “Improving Planning Decision-Making, Thanks to an Infusion of Foundation Funds,” 18 May 2010
- “Transit as a Development Tool, But in Whose Interest?” 17 May 2010
- “Hidden in the Tax Code, a Potential Surplus of Transportation Funds,” 10 May 2010
- “With a $775 Million Downpayment, the Feds Rush in to Rescue Bus Service,” 5 May 2010
- “Are Pedestrian Malls the Future or the Relic of Antiquated Thinking?” 3 May 2010
- “In Praise of Fast Transit, Vital to Spreading Equality of Access in Large Metros,” 26 April 2010
- “Rallies for Transportation Underscore the Need for Funding Reform,” 21 April 2010
- “Can the Densities of Some Neighborhoods be Too Low for Transit to Work?” 20 April 2010
- “Maryland Battles Between Heavy and Light Rail,” 9 April 2010
- “We Keep Riding Transit, Despite the Risks,” 31 March 2010
- “Connecting People to Jobs in Far-Flung Metropolitan Areas,” 25 March 2010
- “LA Hosts a Street Summit,” 19 March 2010
- “The Federal Government Cares Too Much About State DOTs, and That’s a Problem,” 11 March 2010
- “Transportation Should be Fodder for Serious Political Debate,” 8 March 2010
- “Why is Joel Kotkin Extolling the Virtues of Suburbia?” 2 March 2010
- “The American Poor Spread to Suburbia, But We’re Not Ready,” 25 February 2010
- “In New Haven, a Fence Separates City from Suburb,” 20 February 2010
- “Seattle’s Light Rail System Expands East to Bellevue, Meeting Big Controversy,” 20 February 2010
- “Bixi Bike Sharing Goes Global, and With it, the City of Montréal,” 12 February 2010
- “St. Louis Transit Gets Transparent,” 10 February 2010
In addition, I have written the following major pieces. The latter three were published as headline pieces in the magazine.
- “Will they or won’t they? The romance between Obama & high-speed rail,” on Next City online, February 26, 2013
- “Driving in Circles: Downtown Providence Got Rid of its Highway. Can it Lose its Dependence on Cars?” in Next City Forefront, June 2012
- “Is Bike Sharing Doomed in America?,” in Next American City Magazine (print), Winter 2010
- “Minding the Gaps,” in Next American City Magazine (print), Fall 2010
The Infrastructurist
- “Are Urban Farms the Best Hope for Struggling American Cities?” 14 April 2010
- “The Lab that Could Create an Earthquake-Proof Building,” 3 March 2010
- “The Sidewalks of Today and Tomorrow: Is Concrete Our Only Option?” 22 February 2010
- “Who Will Clear the Seabeds of WWII Mines for Gas Pipelines? Robots,” 16 February 2010
- “What’s Being Built in Vancouver? A Sneak Peak at the Olympic Construction,” 11 February 2010
- “Is Indonesia Making a Potentially Disastrous Gamble with High-Speed Rail?” 8 January 2010
- “The Four Highway Projects that Would be the Biggest Waste of Money,” 16 December 2009
- “The Future of American Streetcars: Are they Coming to Your City?” 7 December 2009
- “Meet the Train Makers: Alstom, Bombardier, Talgo, Japanese companies, and Siemens” 26 October-16 November 2009
- “What’s Up with Maglev? 6 Current Proposals to Build Floating Trains,” 24 September 2009
- “9 Fascinating and Futuristic Bus Stops,” 16 September 2009
- “Why Glaeser Got it Wrong: Re-Running the Numbers on High-Speed Rail,” 25 August 2009
- “Demolished! 11 Beautiful Train Stations That Fell to the Wrecking Ball,” 22 June 2009
- “Four Innovations That Could Make Long-Distance Air Travel Greener,” 2 June 2009
- “The World’s 5 Most Ambitious Megaprojects,” 28 May 2009
- “Does Mysterious Math Law Really Predict the Size of Our Cities,” 27 May 2009
- “Department of Demographics: Who Rides Transit?” 22 May 2009
- “A Vibrant US Train Industry Would Employ More People than Car Markers Do Now,” 19 May 2009
- “Comparison Shopping for Transit Systems,” 13 May 2009
- “America’s Streetcar Renaissance,” 4 May 2009
- “The Future of Streetlights: 6 Brilliant New Concepts,” 28 April 2009
- “A Few Thoughts on Obama’s Rail Plan,” 16 April 2009
- “New High Speed Rail Projects Around the World,” 6 April 2009
- “Buses of the Future,” 1 April 2009
- “The World’s 7 Best High Speed Rail Networks,” 26 March 2009
- “Will There Ever be Vertical Farms in Manhattan?” 23 March 2009
- “Could New York City Run Entirely on Green Power?” 18 March 2009
- “Highways to Nowhere: The 7 Most Ridiculous New Roads Being Built in America,” 16 March 2009
The News and Observer
- “RTP must be reworked,” 6 September 2005