Profile picture of Claire Herbert

Claire Herbert

Associate Professor
Sociology
cherbert@uoregon.edu
Office: 729 PLC, 1291 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1291
Office Hours: Spring 2025: by appointment only
Research Interests: urban sociology, housing, homelessness, crime/law, property, race and colonialism

Biography

Professor Herbert received her B.S. in Sociology and Political Science from University of Oregon and her Ph.D in Sociology from University of Michigan in 2016. She was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Drexel University before joining the Sociology Department at University of Oregon. Her research focuses on law, housing, property, and urban sociology. Her book, A Detroit Story: Urban Decline and the Rise of Property Informality was published with University of California Press in 2021. In this book, she examines the way that de jure illegal uses of property - like squatting, scrapping, and gardening - shape the form of the city, neighborhood conditions, and residents’ well being.

Professor Herbert is currently writing a book called When Home is Illegal: Unsheltered Homelessness in America which examines the interaction between local regulations, enforcement, and the well-being of residents experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Professor Herbert is also Co-PI on an NSF-funded, mixed-methods project called "Informality and Inequality in the Global North: Regulation, Non-Compliance, and Enforcement in US Land Use and Housing Law" which studies informal infill: housing units produced in violation of local regulations but that provide an important source of affordable housing. 

 

Publications

Select Recent Publications: (for full list, see Google Scholar Profile)

Haisu Huang and Claire W. Herbert. 2025. “’Long-term temporary’ Disaster Recovery Housing: Living in RVs Post-Wildfire.” Rural Sociology. https://doi-org.uoregon.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/ruso.70019

Claire W. Herbert and Michael Brown. 2025. “Colonial Logics in Rust Belt Revitalization: Rethinking State-Led Gentrification.” City & Community. https://doi.org/10.1177/15356841251330239

Lesley Jo Weaver, Claire W. Herbert, Dylan J. Podrabsky, and Mackenzie L. Ní Flainn. 2025. “Co-Opting the ‘Public’ in Public Health: Homelessness and the Specious Logic of Discretionary Displacement in a Mid-Sized U.S. City.” Journal of Critical Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2025.2455492

Claire W. Herbert and Amanda Ricketts. 2024. “Resisting and Reclaiming: Squatting as Contentious Urban Politics in the U.S.” Social Problems. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spae023

Claire W. Herbert and Michael Brown. 2023. “Race, Property, and Erasure in the Rust Belt: Viewing Urban Changes through a Binocular Colonial Lens.” Du Bois Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X23000061

Claire W. Herbert, Noah Durst, and Deyanira Nevárez Martínez. 2022. “A Typology of Informal Housing in the United States: Lessons for Planners.” Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X221136502

Claire W. Herbert. 2021. A Detroit Story: Urban Decline and the Rise of Property Informality. Oakland: University of California Press.