2016 Walter Isard Award

Dr. Alex Anas is the 2016 recipient of the Walter Isard Award for distinguished scholarly achievement. This award is named in honor of Professor Walter Isard, father of Regional Science, founder of the Regional Science Association, and a leading scholar in the worldwide Regional Science community. Established in 1994, the award pays tribute to regional scientists who have made significant theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of Regional Science throughout their careers.

"Prof Anas’s publications have contributed to the understanding of dynamic land use adjustment, the effects of transportation including public transportation on property values and urban land use, the effects of traffic congestion and congestion pricing on land use, the effects of regulations on the housing market, and the beneficial effects of urban sprawl. He has developed dynamic housing models that address dispersed jobs and residences, has contributed to the theory of systems of cities with intercity trade, studied urban agglomeration, as well as ethnic segregation and ghettos.

More recently, at Buffalo, Dr. Anas completed development of RELU-TRAN (Regional Economy, Land Use and Transportation), a computable general equilibrium model that treats the interconnections of spatially disaggregated labor markets, the markets for housing and non-housing floor space, industry location, real estate development, work and non-work related personal transportation and energy utilization and CO2 emissions in personal transportation. RELU-TRAN has now been applied to analyze congestion, road pricing and urban sprawl in Chicago and in a more extensive application the Los Angeles region.

The North American Regional Science Council is therefore pleased to present the 2016 Walter Isard Award for distinguished scholarly achievement to Alex Anas."