I study how local governments shape planning outcomes in the context of political conflict and multi-level governance systems. I engage this subject from the perspectives of transportation projects, land-use policy, and affordable housing development in the United States and Europe. I integrate these fields through my dissertation project, successfully defended in July 2020.
My published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports are listed below, and detailed further down on this page.
Peer-reviewed journal articles
Yonah Freemark (2023). “Zoning Change: Upzonings, Downzonings, and Their Impacts on Residential Construction, Housing Costs, and Neighborhood Demographics.” Journal of Planning Literature. Online pre-print. DOI: 10.1177/08854122231166961
Christina Stacy, Christopher Davis, Yonah Freemark, Lydia Lo, Graham MacDonald, Vivian Zheng, and Rolf Pendall (2023). “Land-use reforms and housing costs: Does allowing for increased density lead to greater affordability?.” Urban Studies. Online pre-print. DOI: 10.1177/00420980231159500

Yonah Freemark, A. Bliss, and Lawrence J. Vale (2022). “Housing Haussmann’s Paris: The Politics and Legacy of Second Empire Redevelopment.” Planning Perspectives 37(2): 293-317. DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2021.1937293
Yonah Freemark (2023). “Promoting “orderly and sound growth:” 1960s debates over administering public transportation in service of mobility or regional planning.” Journal of Urban History 49(3): 615–644. DOI: 10.1177/00961442211014502
Yonah Freemark and Justin Steil (2022). “Local power and the location of subsidized renters in comparative perspective: Public support for low- and moderate-income households in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.” Housing Studies 37(10): 1753–1781. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2021.1910628
Yonah Freemark (2021). “Doubling housing production in the Paris region: A multi-policy, multi-jurisdictional paradigm.” International Journal of Housing Policy 21(2): 291-305. DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2019.1682233
Yonah Freemark, Anne Hudson, and Jinhua Zhao (2020). “Policies for autonomy: How American cities envision regulating automated vehicles.” Urban Science 4(4): 55. DOI: 10.3390/urbansci4040055
Yonah Freemark, Justin Steil, and Kathleen Thelen (2020). “Varieties of urbanism: A comparative view of metropolitan fragmentation and inequality.” Politics & Society 48(2): 235-274. DOI: 10.1177/0032329220908966
Yonah Freemark (2020). “Upzoning Chicago: Impacts of a Zoning Reform on Property Values and Housing Construction.” Urban Affairs Review 56(3), 758-789. DOI: 10.1177/1078087418824672
Yonah Freemark, Anne Hudson, and Jinhua Zhao (2019). “Are Cities Prepared for Autonomous Vehicles? Planning for Technological Change by U.S. Local Governments.” Journal of the American Planning Association 85(2), 133-151. DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2019.1603760
Yonah Freemark (2019). “Metropolis on the water: Varieties of development logics along the Seine.” Projections 14. DOI: 10.1162/00c13b77.ea8fcc5a
Yonah Freemark (2018). “Challenges in the Creation of Mixed-Use Affordable Housing: Measuring and Explaining Its Limited Prevalence.” Housing Policy Debate 28(6), 1004-1021. DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2018.1506813
Lawrence Vale and Yonah Freemark (2012). “From Public Housing to Public-Private Housing: 75 Years of American Social Experimentation.” Journal of the American Planning Association 78(4), 379-402. DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2012.737985
Yonah Freemark (2011). “Roosevelt Island: Exception to a City in Crisis.” Journal of Urban History 37(3), 355-383. DOI: 10.1177/0096144211400378
Peer-reviewed book chapters
Yonah Freemark, Neema Nassir, and Jinhua Zhao (2022). “Multimodal Relationships: Shared and Autonomous Vehicles and High-Capacity Public Transit.” In Shared Mobility and Automated Vehicles, edited by Ata Khan and Susan Shaheen. London: IET Books. 119-144.

Lawrence Vale and Yonah Freemark (2022). “From Public Housing to Public-Private Housing: 75 Years of American Social Experimentation.” In The Affordable Housing Reader, 2nd Edition, edited by J. Rosie Tighe and Elizabeth J. Mueller. Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter 17.

Lawrence Vale and Yonah Freemark (2019). “The Privatization of American Public Housing: Leaving the Poorest of the Poor Behind.” In The Routledge Handbook of Housing Policy and Planning, edited by Katrin B. Anacker, Mai Thi Nguyen, and David P. Varady. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. 189-206. DOI: 10.4324/9781315642338-15
Yonah Freemark (2015). “Myth #5: Public Housing Ended in Failure during the 1970s.” In Public Housing Myths: Perception, Reality, and Social Policy, edited by Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Fritz Umbach, and Lawrence J. Vale. 121-138. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. DOI: 10.7591/9780801456268-006
Yonah Freemark and Susanne Schindler (2015). “Twin Parks.” In Affordable Housing in New York: The People, Places, and Policies that Transformed a City, edited by Nicholas Dagen Bloom and Matthew Gordon Lasner. 226-230. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Reports
Yonah Freemark, Billy Fleming, Caitlin McCoy, Rennie Meyers, Thea Riofrancos, Xan Lillehei, Daniel Aldana Cohen (2022). “A Green New Deal for Transportation to Establish New Federal Investment Priorities and Build Just and Sustainable Communities.” Climate + Communities Project. Report Link.
Yonah Freemark, Yipeng Su, Wilton Oliver, and Olivia Fiol (2022). “Making the Case for Improved Bicycling Infrastructure: An Analysis of the Final Mile Bicycle Infrastructure Program.” Urban Institute. Report Link.
Yonah Freemark and Harriet Tregoning (2022). “Charting Out a Next-Generation, Place-Based Federal Transportation Policy: Recommendations for More Equitable, Sustainable Mobility.” Urban Institute. Report Link.

Patrick Spauster, Lydia Lo, and Yonah Freemark (2021). “The Rise of Market-Reliant Affordable Housing Tools: Findings from the National Longitudinal Land Use Survey.” Urban Institute. Report Link.

Yonah Freemark, Jorge González-Hermoso, Jorge Morales-Burnett, Preeti Shankar, Cyatharine Alias, and Heidy Persaud (2021). “On the Horizon: Planning for Post-Pandemic Travel.” American Public Transportation Association. November. Report Link. Executive Summary.
Yonah Freemark (2021). “Mandating Access to Affordable Housing, City by City: Is France’s Fair-Share SRU Law a Model for U.S. Metropolitan Areas?” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Working Paper WP21YF1. September. Link.
Yonah Freemark (2021). In Search of Equitable Transit Operations: Examining Public Transportation Funding and Service across the United States. Urban Institute. August. Link.
Yonah Freemark, Eleanor Noble, and Yipeng Su (2021). Who Owns the Twin Cities? An Analysis of Racialized Ownership Trends in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties. Urban Institute. June. Link.
Yonah Freemark and Stephanie Lotshaw (2015). Grow Chicago: Growing near transit benefits us all. Metropolitan Planning Council and Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. July. Link.
Yonah Freemark and Breann Gala (2015). Logan Square Corridor Development Initiative. Metropolitan Planning Council. January. Link.
Yonah Freemark and Breann Gala (2014). Uptown Corridor Development Initiative. Metropolitan Planning Council. August. Link.
Yonah Freemark (2013). The Public Transportation Network in Northeastern Illinois: An Analysis of Existing Conditions. Metropolitan Planning Council. December. Link.
Masters theses
Yonah Freemark (2013). The entrepreneurial state : New York’s Urban Development Corporation, an experiment to take charge of affordable housing production, 1968-1975. Master’s thesis for MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning.
PDF Thesis site
Yonah Freemark (2013). Assessing Journey Time Impacts of Disruptions on London’s Piccadilly Line. Master’s thesis for MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
PDF Thesis site