Master's in Urban & Regional Planning
Brian McCabe

Brian J. McCabe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and an affiliated faculty member in the McCourt School of Public Policy. Professor McCabe is the author of No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community and the Politics of Homeownership (Oxford University Press, 2016). In the book, he unpacks the challenges of strengthening communities through homeownership as owning a home has emerged as the core vehicle for building wealth in the United States. He recently co-edited The Sociology of Housing with Dr. Eva Rosen (University of Chicago Press, 2023) and is the co-author of the forthcoming book Democracy Vouchers and the Fight for Fairer Elections in Seattle with Dr. Jennifer Heerwig (Temple University Press, 2024).

Professor McCabe is working on a new book manuscript about the consequences of scarcity in rental assistance programs. Drawing primarily on interviews with local government officials who administer the Housing Choice Voucher program, the book draws attention to the impact of scarcity on how agencies distribute rental assistance and the ways that those decisions deepen inequality among the poorest households.

Since coming to Georgetown, Professor McCabe has published in a range of interdisciplinary journals, including the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Sociological Science, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, City & Community, the Journal of Urban Economics, Housing Policy Debate, and the Journal of the American Planning Association, among others. He regularly presents research at the American Sociological Association, the Urban Affairs Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. He served as Deputy Editor for the journal City & Community and currently serves on the editorial board of Housing Policy Debates. Professor McCabe teaches courses on urban studies, inequality and cities.

An alumnus of Georgetown, Professor McCabe graduated from the School of Foreign Service in 2002. He completed a Masters degree in urban geography at the London School of Economics in 2004 and a PhD in the Sociology Department at New York University in 2011. From 2022 - 2024, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.