Leading urban planner and influential Labor member Patrick Troy will receive a posthumous gong on Saturday, six months after his death at 82.
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The professor in urban ecology and human environment died in July after a 46-year career as a research academic at the Australian National University in Canberra.
He will be made a companion of the order for eminent service to urban and regional planning, environmental sustainability and social justice policy, and as a mentor and role model.
In his career, he was an engineer, town planner, transport planner and public servant.
In a statement upon his death in July, the university described him as “a man with influential ideas, and a great mentor to many of the current cohort of senior researchers and practitioners. His passion was urban development that ensured fairness and equity for people, and environmentally sustainable outcomes.”
A prolific writer, Professor Troy published 15 books on cities, and various papers on housing, infrastructure, transport, urban planning and development, and energy and water consumption.
He began his career as an engineer and planner in state and local government before joining the ANU as a research academic.
He also held several public appointments, including on the Australian Housing Corporation, the Board of Inquiry into the Administration of Leasehold in the ACT, and the ACT Planning and Land Council.
Former head of the National Capital Development Authority Tony Powell, a lifelong friend who wrote Professor Troy’s obituary, said he had been heavily influenced by his father, who was a significant figure in the labour movement of Western Australia.
Like Mr Powell, he started his career as a civil engineer, and later became Deputy Secretary in the federal department of Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government.
Mr Powell said Professor Troy’s career had been defined throughout by an enduring sense of social justice.
“He'd never put himself forward, he didn't like managing other people, he was attracted to causes,” he said.
He added that the Whitlam government’s emphasis on city and public transport planning had been heavily influenced by Professor Troy.
“He wasn't concerned about himself, he wasn't concerned about advancement, he wasn't concerned about how much money he made, but he was a sucker for causes, so he was very influential, really,” Mr Powell said.
He was also, by all accounts, a decent man with a great sense of humour, who could also be brusque.
