A landmark volume about the importance of housing in social life.

In 1947, the president of the American Sociological Association, Louis Wirth, argued for the importance of housing as a field of sociological research. Now, seventy-five years later, the sociology of housing has still not developed as a distinct subfield, leaving efforts to understand housing’s place in society to other disciplines, such as economics and urban planning. With this volume, the editors and contributors solidify the importance of housing studies within the discipline of sociology by tackling topics like racial segregation, housing instability, the supply of affordable housing, and the process of eviction. In doing so, they showcase the very best traditions of sociology: they draw on diverse methodologies, present unique field sites and data sources, and foreground a range of theoretical approaches to elucidate the relationships between contemporary housing, public policy, and key social outcomes.
 
The Sociology of Housing is a landmark volume that will be used by researchers and students alike to define this growing subfield, map continued directions for research, and center sociologists in interdisciplinary conversations about housing.

 

Brian J. McCabe is associate professor of sociology at Georgetown University and an affiliated faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He is the author of No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community and the Politics of Homeownership. Eva Rosen is associate professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and an affiliated faculty member in the department of sociology. She is the author of The Voucher Promise: “Section 8” and the Fate of an American Neighborhood.

 

Introduction. How Homes Shape Our Social Lives
Brian J. McCabe, Georgetown University; Eva Rosen, Georgetown University

Part I: Mechanisms of Housing Inequality
1. Housing as Capital: US Policy, Homeownership, and the Racial Wealth Gap
Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, University of Albany
2. Latino Homeownership: Opportunities and Challenges in the Twenty-First Century
Allen Hyde, Georgia Institute of Technology; Mary J. Fischer, University of Connecticut
3. Latinos’ Housing Inequality: Local Historical Context and the Relational Formation of Segregation
María G. Rendón, University of California, Irvine; Deyanira Nevárez Martínez, Michigan State University; Maya Parvati Kulkarni, University of California, Irvine
4. The Renaissance Comes to the Projects: Public Housing Policy, Race, and Urban Redevelopment in Baltimore
Peter Rosenblatt, Loyola University Chicago
5. Unsettling Native Land: Indigenous Perspectives on Housing
Jennifer Darrah-Okike, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa; Lorinda Riley, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa; Philip M. E. Garboden, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa; Nathalie Rita, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
6. Affordable Housing Is Public Health: How Landlords Struggle to Contain America’s Lead Poisoning Crisis
Matthew H. McLeskey, SUNY Oswego
7. Audit Studies of Housing Discrimination: Established, Emerging, and Future Research
S. Michael Gaddis, University of California, Los Angeles; Nicholas V. DiRago, University of California, Los Angeles

Part II: Housing Insecurity and Instability
8. Centering the Institutional Life of Eviction
Kyle Nelson, University of California, Los Angeles; Michael C. Lens, University of California, Los Angeles
9. Manufactured Housing in the US: A Critical Affordable Housing Infrastructure
Esther Sullivan, University of Colorado, Denver
10. Shared Housing and Housing Instability
Hope Harvey, University of Kentucky; Kristin L. Perkins, Georgetown University
11. Informal Housing in the US: Variation and Inequality among Squatters in Detroit
Claire Herbert, University of Oregon
12. Housing Deprivation: Homelessness and the Reproduction of Poverty
Chris Herring, Harvard University

Part III: Housing Markets and Housing Supply
13. Housing Supply as a Social Process
Joe LaBriola, Brown University
14. Housing Market Intermediaries
Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, University of New Mexico; Robin Bartram, Tulane University; Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin–Madison
15. Housing in the Context of Neighborhood Decline
Sharon Cornelissen, Harvard University; Christine Jang-Trettien, Princeton University
16. Learning from Short-Term Rentals’ “Disruptions” 
Krista E. Paulsen, Boise State University
17. Moving Beyond “Good Landlord, Bad Landlord”: A Theoretical Investigation of Exploitation in Housing
Philip M. E. Garboden, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
18. How We Pay to House Each Other
Isaac William Martin, University of California, San Diego

Part IV: Housing, Racial Segregation, and Inequality
19. The Future of Segregation Studies: Questions, Challenges, and Opportunities
Jacob William Faber, New York University
20. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Residential Mobility among Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Erin Carll, University of Washington; Hannah Lee, University of Washington; Chris Hess, Kennesaw State University; Kyle Crowder, University of Washington
21. All in the Family: Social Connections and the Cycle of Segregation
Maximilian Cuddy, University of Illinois, Chicago; Amy Spring, Georgia State University; Maria Krysan, University of Illinois, Chicago; Kyle Crowder, University of Washington
22. Policing, Property, and the Production of Racial Segregation
Rahim Kurwa, University of Illinois, Chicago
23. Criminal Justice Contact and Housing Inequality
Brielle Bryan, Rice University; Temi Alao, University of Florida
24. The Housing Divide in the Global South
Marco Garrido, University of Chicago

Works Cited
Index