Austin Troy's Academic Interests
· Land Use Policy, planning and economics
· GIS,
spatial analysis, remote sensing
· Land use change modeling and simulation
My interests lie at the intersection of urban and
regional planning, spatial analysis, and landscape ecology. Put simply, my work applies spatial
analysis tools to study issues related to urbanization and the urban
environment—issues such as: drivers of land use change; natural hazards
mitigation in the urban-wildland interface; the
relationship between crime and the natural environment; the public health and
energy use impacts of urban form; the equitable spatial distribution and
property value impacts of environmental amenities and liabilities; the effects
of homeowner behavior and residential design on residential non-point source
pollution; and the impacts of local and regional land use policies on urban
sprawl. The tools I use to address
these issues include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing,
dynamic modeling, and spatial statistics/econometrics. Some of my research
focuses specifically on developing and advancing methodologies built on these
tools. My methodological research has addressed issues such as: characterization
of forest fragmentation in suburban and exurban areas; mapping approaches for
quantifying the spatial distribution and flow of urban ecosystem services; assessing
geographic variation in statistical relationships (i.e. “non-stationarity”); segmentation algorithms for deriving
geographic boundaries of housing markets or neighborhoods; policy scenario
evaluation procedures in urban growth models; spatial characterization models of
watershed vulnerability to urbanization pressures; and techniques of fine-scale
land cover mapping of vegetation in heterogeneous urban areas.
My most recent research interest focuses on how cities consume energy and how energy footprint relates to urban form, transportation systems, climate, and water transfers. This is the topic of my book, The Very Hungry City, published by Yale Press in January 2012. Follow the link for more details on the book including chapters, press, reviews, interviews, etc.
For more on my interests, see my research page.