yonahfreemark.com - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Just so this is clear, an unelected group of government employees blackmailed a private organization's security firm to help them break into that private organization's headquarters by threatening to terminate their other contracts. Giving Watergate vibes.

submitted 1 day ago • 47 comments

Facts: —Subway travel is far safer than car travel —More than 250 people died in car traffic-related incidents in 2024 in New York City, compared to 10 on the Subway gothamist.com/news/feeling... —Subway crime is declining rapidly in incidence www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/ne...

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

"The Chinese EV-maker shocked the world with a fast charger, while the U.S. is still figuring out if EVs are too woke." Uppercut of a dek from @liamdenning.bsky.social today www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

submitted 1 day ago • 36 comments

This isn't anti-DEI - it's retelling history as a story with only white men in it. The tale of the Navajo Code Talkers is essential to understanding the Allies' victory in WWII. Removing it because the people involved were non-white is segregationism.

submitted 3 days ago • 173 comments

New NBER paper finds that income growth—not housing supply elasticity—is the best predictor of housing prices & quantity: "Our results imply that housing supply constraints are quantitatively unimportant in explaining rising housing costs." www.nber.org/system/files... [Don't shoot the messenger.]

submitted 3 days ago • 15 comments

New NBER paper shows dramatic effects of NYC's congestion pricing in contrast with a set of control cities: A large reduction in travel times on roadways—average speeds increased by 15%—combined with a substantial reduction in vehicular emissions. www.nber.org/system/files...

submitted 3 days ago • 14 comments

Yonah Freemark of the Urban Institute is back again the second part of his annual "Talking Headways" discussion.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Ranjani Srinivasan is an international student from India pursuing a doctorate in urban planning. She received a Fulbright scholarship. She was forced to flee to Canada to escape ICE, which was pursuing her for nonsense reasons. Columbia kicked her out of the doctoral program.

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

The US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) focuses on preventing & ending homelessness. Dissolving it (and devastating cuts to HUD, SAMHSA etc) will hamper efforts to address homelessness—as the these policies dramatically worsen an existing catastrophe. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Trump signed an order this morning seeking to vastly reduce the scope of the CDFI Fund (among several other agencies). The CDFI Fund plays an essential role in US community development, particularly through the distribution of New Markets tax credits.

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

The Senate has passed the deeply flawed House R funding bill. It’s far from “clean”— but the single most important fact now is this: The CR has set in law full-year funding levels that make clear the Administration's impoundments & mass firings remain illegal. Period.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

A wonderful tribute to Mumford, who wrote, “We cannot have an efficient form of our transport. system until we can envisage a better permanent structure for our cities… the 1st lesson we have to learn is that the city exists, not for the facile passage of cars, but for the care & culture of men.”

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Congress’ funding package that the House GOP passed would not only force arbitrary funding cuts for DC (on revenues it raises itself!), but also could pass down cuts to Metro, forcing one of the nation’s best performing transit agencies to suddenly cut service & jobs.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

More fun transit podcasting for those who can’t get enough!

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

New data tool launch today 🚨 @urbaninstitute.bsky.social's Federal Infrastructure site. It includes detailed information on funds from 110 programs across all states, counties & metro areas. Tool pinpoints the support that communities receive for transportation, housing, energy, water & broadband.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Great dashboard. You can easily see that the Philadelphia metro area receives almost 16% less in federal transit formula funding per-capita than peer metro Boston, most likely because PA is not on the Section 5340 "high-density" state list like MA and other NE states are

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

So much to explore in this new tool on fed infrastructure funding from @yonahfreemark.com and colleagues at @urbaninstitute.bsky.social. The ability to toggle between program and place is a huge bonus. 🚨Includes a lot of IRA and IIJA programs and helps paint of picture of what's at stake with cuts

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

New data tool launch today 🚨 @urbaninstitute.bsky.social's Federal Infrastructure site. It includes detailed information on funds from 110 programs across all states, counties & metro areas. Tool pinpoints the support that communities receive for transportation, housing, energy, water & broadband.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

EPA wants to: —Overturn limits on soot from smokestacks & restrictions on emissions of mercury —Eliminate protection of poor, minority communities —No longer consider costs to society from wildfires, droughts, storms that might be made worse by pollution —Erase authority to regulate greenhouse gases

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

ICYMI: USDOT is "reviewing" [meaning: attempting to take back] all funding awards for projects that include any bike infrastructure [among other things!] that were funded by the Biden admin but which haven't yet received their grants. Streetsblog has the story:

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

So far, NYC congestion pricing has NOT increased traffic on highways outside of the congestion zone. Summary: Traffic declined a lot within the congestion relief zone, AND it's flat in other areas where you'd expect traffic to be diverted to. It's a win-win! nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/03/12/d...

submitted 8 days ago • 5 comments

USDOT Secretary's office sent an email to DOT agencies instructing them to review competitively awarded—but not yet fully obligated—projects under Biden that include: —Green infra —Bike infra —EV infra —Project purpose to reduce greenhouse gas emissions DOT wants to revise project scopes or cancel.

submitted 8 days ago • 21 comments

US House's federal spending bill could force DC—the city—to immediately cut $1 billion in expenditures. GOP chair of appropriations committee said "We’re not taking anything that affects the day to day operation of municipal services." But the bill would force a 16% cut to schools, police & more.

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

In the Paris region, Dec. transit use was at 96% of pre-Covid levels, & still ramping up. Traffic levels on the Paris ring road & within the city itself are shifting down, with car traffic in the city in January 19% below pre-pandemic levels, and falling. www.institutparisregion.fr/mobilite-et-...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

China offers a great counterfactual to the Western argument of "what if we simply stopped doing strategy?"

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

EPA Head Lee Zeldin said that "environmental justice — which the agency defined in 2013 as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income"...was tantamount to discrimination."

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Please, please, if you report on this: the mandate to affirmatively further fair housing is literally codified in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and neither Trump nor HUD can “repeal” this law. The rule defined how to enforce the law, but the law and obligation remain. www.yahoo.com/news/hud-sec...

submitted 9 days ago • 9 comments