Brian J. McCabe
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About Brian
McCabe's research focuses on several urban policy issues, including rental assistance programs, municipal campaign finance, and historic preservation in American cities. His first book, No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community, and the Politics of Homeownership, and he is completing another manuscript on the Housing Choice Voucher program. He is the co-author of Democracy Vouchers and the Promise of Fair Elections in Seattle and the co-editor of The Sociology of Housing: How Homes Shape Our Social Lives. From 2022-2024, McCabe served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at HUD.
Contributions
Early Results — and Next Steps— for Seattle's Democracy Voucher Program
In the News
Publications
Draws on fieldwork and administrative records from Baltimore, Maryland; Dallas, Texas; Los Angeles, California; and Washington, DC— to identify how procedural and legal contexts differ by place, and the ways that these processes shape both eviction’s institutional life and its underlying social meanings. Identifies how the problem of eviction is no longer hidden in the housing literature, the explosion of eviction research has introduced a comparative analysis problem.
Challenges long-standing notions about the civic benefits of homeownership. Argues that homeowners, in an effort to protect their property values, often engage in the communities in ways that reinforce patterns of economic and racial segregation.
Examines whether homeowners engage more actively in local politics than renters.
Examines patterns of representational distortions in financing the 2013 municipal election in Seattle. Finds that campaigns are overwhelmingly funded by wealthy donors in a small subset of Seattle neighborhoods.
Examines the impact of historic preservation on patterns of neighborhood change in New York City.