Patterns and drivers of urban expansions in the Texas Triangle: Case study of the Austin metropolitan region

Urban expansions result from population and economic growth; yet they often come together with diseconomies, for example, congestion, pollution, and resource depletion. Understanding urban expansion patterns, dynamics, and trends is essential to formulate public interventions aimed at achieving long-term sustainability. This study makes the needed effort through a case study of the Texas Triangle megaregion. Texas Triangle is one of the fastest growing megaregions in the United States. In the past thirty years (1990-2020), the region’s population grew by 89%, from 12.32 million to 23.02 million. Accompanying the fast and large population growth was the urban expansion of matched speed and size. The style of Texas’s past expansion has made it known as one of America’s most sprawling and automobile-dependent regions. Texas Triangle’s population is projected to continue to grow rapidly, reaching 28.71/32.88 million by 2050 in the moderate/fast growth scenario. With the extensive growth in the past and in the forthcoming future, the megaregion is facing many daunting challenges to be addressed urgently. What adds to the urgency is the annual threats from natural disasters. For instance, Hurricanes landed in Houston and the Gulf Coast in recent years have caused billions of dollars of property damages, hundreds of deaths, and thousands of households being displaced. The impacts of the disasters have gone beyond the Houston region, reaching to the rest of the Triangle and other counties and neighboring states. The purpose of the study is to analyze Texas Triangle’s growth patterns and dynamics and simulate future scenarios of urban expansion. A specific interest of the study is in the role that major transportation investments and projects have played in the past in Texas Triangle’s expansion. Findings obtained from analyzing the past and future trends will help planners and policy makers to formulate public interventions to channel future growth towards a sustainable path. The project will utilize SLEUTH, an open source, cellular automaton modeling tool that has been widely applied to model land use/land cover changes. The main datasets for the project include 2001-2016 land use/land cover imageries available from the United States Geological Survey's (USGS’) National Land Cover Database (NLCD). Additional data on the socioeconomic characteristics and transportation networks for the study area will be processed from the U.S. censuses or obtained from Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $30,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747135

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)

  University of Texas at Austin
  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Principal Investigators:

  Zhang, Ming

• Start Date: 20201001
• Expected Completion Date: 20230930
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Forecasting; Land use; Socioeconomic factors; Transportation policy; Urban growth; Urban sprawl
• Geographic Terms: Austin (Texas); Texas Triangle megaregion
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01937927
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747135
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 23 2024 10:16AM