Volume 15 • APA II • 2003€¦ · lation to participatory processes. He sets forth the concept...

Volume 15 • APA II • 2003

Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association

CONTENTS

REFEREED

5 Introduction to the Second Special Issue on Access and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information

Harlan J. Onsrud and Max Craglia, Co-Editors9 Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches in

Using Geographic Information Max Craglia and Harlan Onsrud17 Public Participation GIS and Local Political Context: Propositions and Research

Directions Rina Ghose and Sarah Elwood25 The Issue of Access: An Assessment Guide for Evaluating Public Participation

Geographic Information Science Case Studies Melinda Laituri33 Reflections on PPGIS: A View from the Trenches Meg Merrick41 Geographic Information and Public Participation: Research Proposal from a

French Perspective Stéphane Roche49 Digital Participation and Access to Geographic Information: A Case Study of

Local Government in the United Kingdom Robin S. Smith and Massimo Craglia55 The Intersection of Data Access And Public Participation: Impacting GIS Users’

Success? David L. Tulloch and Tamara Shapiro61 Community-integrated GIS for Land Reform

in South Africa Daniel Weiner and Trevor M. Harris75 A Framework for the Use of Geographic Information in Participatory Community

Planning and Development Robert D. Rugg

2 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 3

Journal

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US ISSN 1045-8077

Publisher: Urban and Regional Information Systems Association

Editor-in-Chief: Stephen J. Ventura

Journal Coordinator: Scott A. Grams

Electronic Journal: http://www.urisa.org/journal.htm


URISA Journal Editor

Editor-in-ChiefStephen J. Ventura, Department of Environmental Studies and Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thematic Editors

Editor-Urban and Regional Information Science

Lewis Hopkins, Department of Planning, University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana

Editor-Applications ResearchLyna Wiggins, Department of Planning, Rutgers University

Editor-Social, Organizational, Legal, and Economic Sciences

Ian Masser, Department of Urban Planning and Management, ITC (Netherlands)

Editor-Geographic Information ScienceMark Harrower, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin Madison

Editor-Information and Media SciencesMichael Shiffer, Department of Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Editor-Spatial Data Acquisition and Integration

Gary Hunter, Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne (Australia)

Editor-Geography, Cartography, and Cognitive Science

David Mark, Department of Geography, SUNY-Buffalo

Editor-EducationKaren Kemp, Department of Geography, University of California-Berkeley

Section Editors

Software Review Editor Jay Lee, Department of Geography, Kent State University

Book Review EditorRebecca Somers, Somers-St. Clair

Literature Review EditorZorica Nedovic, Department of Urban and Regional Planning,University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana

Article Review Board

Peggy Agouris, Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering, University of Maine

Grenville Barnes, Geomatics Program, University of Florida

Michael Batty, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London (United Kingdom)

Kate Beard, Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering, University of Maine

Yvan Bédard, Centre for Research in Geomatics, Laval University (Canada)

Barbara P. Buttenfield, Department of Geography, University of Colorado

Keith C. Clarke, Department of Geography, University of California-Santa Barbara

David Coleman, Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick (Canada)

David J. Cowen, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina

Massimo Craglia, Department of Town & Regional Planning, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom)

William J. Craig, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota

Robert G. Cromley, Department of Geography, University of Connecticut

Kenneth J. Dueker, Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University

Geoffrey Dutton, Spatial Effects

Max J. Egenhofer, Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering, University of Maine

Manfred Ehlers, Geoinformatics and Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Vechta (Germany)

Manfred M. Fischer, Economics, Geography & Geoinformatics, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (Austria)

Myke Gluck, Department of Math and Computer Science, Virginia Military Institute

Michael Goodchild, Department of Geography, University of California-Santa Barbara

Michael Gould, Department of Science, Experimentales Universitat (Spain)

Daniel A. Griffith, Department of Geography, Syracuse University

Francis J. Harvey, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota

Kingsley E. Haynes, Public Policy and Geography, George Mason University

Eric J. Heikkila, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California

Stephen C. Hirtle, Department of Information Science and Telecommunications, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Gary Jeffress, Department of Geographic

Information Science, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Richard E. Klosterman, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Akron

Robert Laurini, Claude Bernard University of Lyon (France)

Thomas M. Lillesand, Environmental Remote Sensing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Paul Longley, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College, London (United Kingdom)

Xavier R. Lopez, Oracle Corporation

David Maguire, Environmental Systems Research Institute

John McLaughlin, Research and International Cooperation, University of New Brunswick (Canada)

Harvey J. Miller, Department of Geography, University of Utah

Joel L. Morrison, Center for Mapping, Ohio State University

Atsuyuki Okabe, Department of Urban Engineering, University of Tokyo (Japan)

Jeffrey K. Pinto, School of Business, Penn State Erie

Gerard Rushton, Department of Geography, University of Iowa

Jie Shan, School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University

Bruce D. Spear, Federal Highway Administration

Jonathan Sperling, Policy Development & Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

David J. Unwin, School of Geography, Birkbeck College, London (United Kingdom)

Stephen J. Ventura, Environmental Studies and Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nancy von Meyer, Fairview Industries

Barry Wellar, Department of Geography, University of Ottawa (Canada)

Michael F. Worboys, Department of Computer Science, Keele University (United Kingdom)

Benjamin Zhan, Department of Geography, Southwest Texas State University

EDITORS AND REVIEW BOARD

URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 5

URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 5

This is the second of two consecutive special issues addressing access and participatory topics in using geographic information. In the last issue we noted that there are at least two major research themes in addressing issues of “access” within the geographic in-formation science (GIS) research community. The first involves spatial concepts and theories that relate to access to goods and services generally. The second involves the notion of access to geographic information as a source of wealth and power.

Closely affiliated with concepts of access is the concept of “participatory” geographic information technologies and processes. For further background on these topics as they are being pursued within the research community, please see the introduction to the previous special issue (URISA Journal, Vol. 15, API, 2003).

The articles in both special issues of the URISA Journal arose from papers presented at the “Workshop on Access and Partici-patory Approaches Using Geographic Information” held in the Fall of 2001 in Spoleto, Italy as well as from a subsequent call for papers on the topics of the Workshop. The Workshop was jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the European Science Foundation and the final report from the Workshop is contained at the end of this second special issue.

Special Issue IIThe focus of the first special issue was primarily on methodological and research framework topics. In this issue the articles continue to consider competing frameworks for assessing access and par-ticipatory factors in the use of geographic information but also contains articles with much stronger emphasis on experiences and case studies. The first several articles assess or test participatory ex-periences against selected research frameworks while later articles focus on in depth case study exploration or active involvement in a participatory implementation or process.

The issue begins with a provocative article by Steve Carver that starts a discussion of democracy and empowerment in re-

Introduction to the Second Special Issue on Access and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic

Information

Harlan J. Onsrud and Max Craglia, Co-Editors

lation to participatory processes. He sets forth the concept of a “participatory ladder” in order to discuss the activity level at which citizens might or might not desire or be able to participate in governmental decision-making processes. He summarizes the potential of GIS as a facilitator of broader participation in deci-sion-making processes and then assesses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the technological systems developed to date. In the light of these assessments, he makes recommenda-tions for further research directions in the field.

The article by David Tulloch and Tamara Shapiro follows di-rectly from and extends concepts introduced in the Carver article. These authors treat access and participation as distinct concepts within the context of public GIS use. They offer a new conceptual “ladder of data access” to compliment the more established “ladder of public participation.” The two concepts are related through a four-cell matrix of low and high levels of participation along one axis and low and high levels of access along the other. Each cell is further split into likelihood of success and lack of success of outcome. Public GIS use cases may thus be categorized within the resulting framework. The authors present examples of real and hypothetical geographic information use cases that comport with the framework and suggest the framework as a preliminary means by which others might rationally categorize, compare and gain a deeper understanding of similar geographic information use cases. The model extended from and was used to categorize experiences only within US local government jurisdictions.

Melinda Laituri argues that access in the context of participa-tory processes involves several components: context, connectivity, capabilities and content. She introduces an assessment guide to define a series of continuums for evaluating case studies that involve public participation and geographic information systems. Seven case studies are examined. Her purpose in introducing the framework and illustrating its applicability in assessing existing case studies is to facilitate a dialogue for evaluating public par-ticipation, access and geographic information systems.


The article by Robert Rugg explains a framework for com-parative analysis of participatory geographic information systems developed by a group of participants at the workshop in Spoleto. His article considers the usefulness of the framework in the context of two examples of urban indicators projects. He asks: Is it a use-ful framework within which to consider and compare experiences among geographically based planning projects in different urban areas? Does it raise questions in relation to particular projects that would not be otherwise asked? Are there important issues in geographically based community planning and development that are not addressed by the framework? His study concludes that for the community planning projects considered the “Spoleto framework” has value as assessed against each of the questions while limitations also became evident.

The next article describes experiences with a community integrated GIS for land reform in South Africa. Daniel Weiner and Trevor Harris present results from a project concerned with participatory applications of GIS in support of the redistribu-tion of natural resources in a post-apartheid environment. They describe their work as an experiment in the application of Community Integrated GIS (CiGIS). Central to their research was the production of people’s maps and GIS representations of community spatial stories. They conclude that the richness of the people’s maps produced through the project and the en-thusiastic community-driven ideas for spatial analysis must be contrasted with substantial difficulties in implementing a system that is actually influential in affecting local policy decision-mak-ing. The production of a CiGIS that is genuinely incorporated into local civil society will require long sustained commitment toward including community participants in the identification and resolution of community issues.

The article by Stéphane Roche discusses French experiences and reactions related to planning activities that incorporate greater levels of cooperation among different levels of government with a particular focus on those that make use of geographic infor-mation. France is well known for its centralized administration of government. The dynamics are currently complex because governance structures in the nation are undergoing an active decentralization process. Formal participatory approaches have not been the tradition yet there are many open questions as to what the future will bring. The primary citizen participation in the past has been primarily in the form of opposition and dem-onstration to planning decisions after they are made as opposed to citizens being engaged throughout the planning process. The extent to which citizens could or should be more fully engaged is not yet clear. The author raises several questions regarding the opportunities and pitfalls of increased participatory processes in a French context. A case study project is underway.

How does one effectively enable broad grassroots constituen-cies to take advantage of the power of geographic information technologies? The next article describes experiences with an interesting strategy of partnering students, such as high school students, with community groups in an attempt to meet the

learning and community issue exploration needs of both. The Community Geography Project of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies was created to make understanding of the metropolitan area a strategic asset for citizens, provide a neutral forum for the discussion of critical metropolitan policy issues, provide access to the resources of higher education, and create partnerships to meet community and scholarly objectives. GIS has the potential to allow users to ask new and better questions about their communities and one goal of the Community Geog-raphy Project was to help build the capacity within neighborhoods to enable community groups to have the freedom to explore the questions they most care about. Learning to use GIS effectively is difficult. Based on previous experiences, this participatory project started with the assumption that the technology is best learned doing real projects in local neighborhoods around issue-oriented discovery. The benefits and shortfalls experienced in the first year of the partnering approach are set forth in the article by Margrete Merrick.

Transparency is a critical issue in striving for meaningful public participatory decision-making processes. Christina Drew explores what transparency means, how it might be measured, the complexity of the measurement process, and the notion that transparency in access to underlying data and the processes of arriving at decisions will likely change with time, context and space. The article focuses on the case of a “Decision Mapping System” created to track the activities surrounding a former plutonium production facility that has now been designated as a national repository for nuclear waste. She cites the process used as a positive example of how to facilitate decision transparency using geographic information and Internet technology.

The next article explores several ways in which local politi-cal context affects the nature of participatory processes among traditionally marginalized citizens in urban governance, the nature of public participation GIS initiatives among community based organizations, and the effectiveness and sustainability of public participation GIS initiatives. Rina Ghose and Sarah Elwood draw their observations from data gathered as part of a comparative study of participatory GIS initiatives involving grassroots orga-nizations formed by traditionally marginalized citizens in Min-neapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee. This article draws primarily from interviews with local government officials, local technology and data providers and community organization staff members from the Milwaukee portion of the data. The use of GIS by various grassroots organizations in the city was typically directed at facilitating greater citizen participation in urban governance and inner city revitalization efforts. The complexity of the local context affecting their participation is explored through discus-sion of a complex set of wide ranging and inter-related factors as expressed through the interview process.

The final article in the issue stresses as well the complex-ity of the web of relationships that must be understood to ap-preciate participatory actions and processes. Robin Smith and Massimo Craglia present findings from their research into the nature of digital participation in UK local government. Among


other observations, they stress that participation is not a shared or welcome goal of all parties involved in decision making pro-cesses and understanding of access and participatory outcomes requires one to recognize the numerous ways in which people adapt and reinvent technology and information to fit their own needs. In recognizing that public participation is a complicated and multifaceted process, they suggest that place-based research with strong comparative and cross-cultural dimensions that enable moving from individual cases to more general issues appears to be a promising direction for further research.

Workshop ReportPublished as part of this special issue is the report that arose from the activities and discussions that took place at the “Workshop on Access and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information” held in Spoleto Italy, 5-9 December 2001. The report includes a discussion of the objectives of the meeting, the major substantive themes addressed at the workshop, and a summary of the key findings developed jointly by the European and US scholars.

Acknowledgement

Articles in this special issue are based partially upon work or participation in a workshop supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0098389 and the European Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recom-mendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the European Science Foundation.

URISA Journal • Craglia, Onsrud 9

URISA Journal • Craglia, Onsrud 9

IntroductionThe continuing rapid diffusion of geographic information tech-nologies throughout societal applications and the growing perva-siveness of geographic and location data use in our communities has spurred diverse notions in the scientific community concerning priorities for research and the nature of appropriate research. This divergence in thinking is particularly noticeable in comparing “GIS and Society” research agendas in the U.S. versus those in Europe (see GIScience Research Agendas). How European nations and Europe as a whole are responding to the expanded use of geographic information by individuals, businesses, government agencies, and scientists varies substantially from the responses witnessed in the U.S. Laws and policies regarding the handling of scientific, techni-cal, business, personal and government data are very different across the Atlantic and these differences are influencing both technical and social science research directions in the field.

Divergence in research directions is not necessarily bad and in fact may be highly beneficial in exposing new findings. However, at a time of increased expansion in global information networks along with increased communications and transactions across those networks, the growing gaps in U.S. versus European approaches to data handling are a matter of concern. Differences in societal approaches have given rise to a divergence in “GIS and Society” research suggesting a need to renew efforts in the cross-fertilization of links between U.S. and European researchers. These commu-nities need to inform each other in detail about the underlying influences affecting the directions of research and the different paths being taken.

With these considerations in mind, this workshop was orga-nized by the Association for Geographic Information Laboratories (AGILE) and the University Consortium for Geographic Informa-tion Science (UCGIS) with the financial support of the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Workshop was held in Spoleto, Italy, 5-9th December 2001 with 29 scholars coming in equal share from the US and Eu-

Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic

Information

Report of Meeting and Research Agenda

A workshop funded jointly by the European Science Foundation and the National Science Foundation

Max Craglia and Harlan Onsrud

rope (See Section 6 for the list of participants). The papers presented at the workshop are available online (See www.shef.ac.uk/~scgisa/spoleto/workshop.htm).

Objectives of the WorkshopThe workshop addressed research directions, priorities and progress under two major themes: a) Access to Geographic Information and b) Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Informa-tion. Within the context of both of these themes our objectives included providing cross-fertilization of research ideas and experi-ences, building an international person-to-person community of science, and developing to the extent possible joint U.S./European research agendas.

Several points made a compelling case for an international workshop addressing these issues at the time.• Published research agendas and actual research activities have

diverged across the Atlantic in the “GIS and Society” domain as scientists have responded to the differing priorities of their respective societies as reflected in the divergent and unsettled information laws, policies and practices being followed on their respective continents.

• Because our nations and communities are currently struggling with means and methods for providing access and participation in a time of rapid technological change and are committing substantial resources towards specific solutions, there is a critical need for dialogue among researchers to assess and critique the choice of decisions being made.

• Organizations with broad and inclusive research university constituencies recently have formed on each side of the Atlantic (UCGIS and AGILE) and there is an immediate need to forge initial and continuing links between the large research community constituencies that these organizations represent.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~scgisa/spoleto/workshop.htm


10 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Craglia, Onsrud 11

The two major themes of the workshop are discussed more specifically in the next section .

Access to Geographic Information There are three major strands in addressing issues of “access” that we wished to pursue. The first relates to the role of governments, at international, national, and local levels in conceptualizing and implementing access to information. This includes regulatory frameworks such as Freedom of Information legislation, defini-tion of different typologies of information and users, the supporting business models necessary to ensure sustainable implementations, and the development of the infrastructure necessary to deliver the information. Such infrastructure includes not only physical artifacts, but more crucially organizational practices for data documentation, storage, and retrieval, and the knowledge infrastructure necessary to ensure usability (Burrough et al. 1997). Recent research (Cra-glia et al. 1999) indicates that a wide range of approaches exist in conceptualizing public sector information which in turn lead to different roles taken by governments and public sector organization in respect to its dissemination (Masser 1998). This raises not only important research questions on the social construction of geo-graphic information and related technologies within organizational context, but also major policy issues on the role of information ac-cess in supporting and promoting scientific advancement (Newby et al. 1992, Borgman and Früwald 1997).

The second strand focuses on access as a basis of wealth and power in society and addresses societal issues such as equity, owner-ship, and control. Those active in this research domain argue that the foundations of legal rights of citizens and scientists to access in-formation are being undermined as we move into networked digital data environments. Thus, researchers focused in this arena believe it is important to identify the processes by which losses in access are occurring, investigate models for expanding access or providing more equitable access, and assessing the measurable dimensions of information wealth and poverty, and growing disparities, including

differential geographies of information exclusion (Harris and Weiner, 1996, Craig et al. 1999).

The third strand looks at the concept of accessibility to goods and services in respect to the evolving relation-ships between physical, social, and information space. The nature of accessibility is changing as many goods and services may be “accessed” without recourse to physical movement. Information, in combination with the infra-structure that carries it, is a new and expanding resource that often replaces physical resources, labor, and capital. Access to physical space can be replaced or complemented by access to virtual space in which traditional notions of distance, nearness, and spatial interaction lose meaning or, at least, must be reassessed. In virtual environments activities appear to be more people-based than place-based. Where you physically are is becoming less and less

of an indicator of what you may be doing. Thus, the traditional assumption of a strong correlation between place and activity upon which many geographic models have been based is often unwar-ranted in virtual environments (Janelle and Hodge 1998).

There is a need to explore commonalities and differences in social, economic and legal treatment of access to geographic information in U.S., European, and international contexts and to become informed about how those commonalities and differences are affecting research directions in our respective regions of concern. As a general rule, laws in the U.S. allow greater access to government information at the local, state, and national government levels and use of that information than is generally allowed in the nations of Europe. As a further generalization, U.S. law grants individuals greater leeway to use and build upon the work products of oth-ers without permission than is granted by the laws of European nations. Perhaps as a result, European researchers appear to be directing more concerted effort into the first and second of these strands while researchers in the U.S. appear to be more focused on the second and third strands.

Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic InformationWhile the first theme of the workshop looked at various dimensions of access to geographic information, the second questioned the extent to which increased access will necessarily lead to increased participation of the public in democratic and policy processes. This research theme goes at the heart of an important debate on the role of information-based technologies in the social sciences (Craglia 1999). Geographic information technologies in particular are alternatively seen as “tools” with potential for empowering com-munities or “social practices” that invasively advantage some people and organizations while marginalizing others. Public participation GIS research efforts in the U.S. largely adhere to the first and more positive view and seek to develop approaches, mechanisms, technologies, and institutions that aid self-determination with full awareness of the second view that choices made may have negative as well as positive power ramifications (Craig et al. 1999, Harris

Spoleto Workshop Participants


and Weiner 1996). In Europe, a cohesive body of researchers work-ing on participatory GIS has not emerged to the same extent as in the U.S., and research on participatory issues has been carried out in different disciplines and scientific communities, often only peripherally linked to the geographic information community. The meeting offered therefore an opportunity to bring together lead-ing researchers from these diverse traditions to assess the current state of research and activities on both continents relating to the participatory models being advanced in the domain of decision-making involving geographic information.

Workshop FindingsThe following findings were developed through a series of small group and plenary workshop sessions held over a period of several days.

Access to Geographic InformationThe discussions held at the meeting indicate a considerable degree of consensus on a number of key issues. As a starting point there is a general recognition that access to geographic information has to be seen in the broader context of access to electronic information by citizens, organized groups, businesses, and government agencies. Although some aspects may be specific to the geographic dimension of the information treated, such as the complexity of interpretation, the majority of issues are not. Geographic information therefore provides a convenient focus with which to explore sets of issues that are of generic interest to society and social science research at the beginning of the 21st century.

The second important aspect is that access to information is not just about physical or technological access, i.e. availability of a computer and modem, but includes at least two other dimen-sions. The first dimension is social access or the extent to which socially-grounded relations affect the opportunity and ability to have access to information, and the extent to which, having ac-cessed the information, the user is able to interpret it and “use” it for whatever purpose. Following from this is the dimension of power or the extent to which users have the necessary power in the social and political arena to harness the information available to effect change.

Having embedded the concept of access in its social and politi-cal context, it is also clear that governments, at both local and central level, have an enormously important role in setting the framework within which matters relating to access to information play out. There is an additional specific geographic information dimension to this aspect as geographic information is often recognized as having an important economic value, and hence it is an arena in which social and economic objectives are often in conflict, and govern-ments are asked to mediate between them.

The final generic point emerging from the discussion is that there is a need to develop a robust methodological framework for access-related research, anchored in sound theory, particularly when addressing multi-cultural, multi-national research questions.

With these considerations in mind, the research agenda developed at the workshop can be structured under three broad headings, as illustrated below.

Institutional and Organizational IssuesUnder this heading there are three main areas of research:i) What is the influence of national, sub-national and professional

cultures on approaches to data access and sharing? This is probably best analyzed through a series of comparative case-studies drawing for example on the theoretical frameworks put forward by scholars such as Hofstede. This line of research provides the overall background to the following areas.

ii) What is the role of governments in developing spatial data infrastructures and their impacts on the accessibility and use of geographic information? Here again a series of comparative case-studies should be developed with common methodology, and with particular attention given to the changes that these initiatives are going through, as well as the relationships with the overall institutional and cultural context. The analysis of change should consider technology-driven, socially-driven and politically-driven change (or lack of), and, based on this analysis, provide an opportunity for the development and systematic exploration of scenarios of possible futures to try and steer away from undesirable change.

iii) What is the role of individual and organizational behavior in shaping the conditions for the provision of access to data? To investigate this set of issues a two pronged approach is suggested: the first would include a series of comparative case-studies of organizational change in government to meet the challenges of the Information Society including the exploration of the influence of organizational cultures. The second approach, is to draw on decision-making research and social psychology, for example the Theory of Planned Behavior, to focus on the regional and organizational differences in the perceptions of incentives and disincentives to spatial data sharing, and provide a basis for analyzing how the motivations to engage in spatial data sharing change over time.

Legal and Economic IssuesThis heading includes the exploration of the following research questions:

How can the public domain of spatial data be preserved and expanded in support of democratic principles, economic vitality, and the advancement of science? In particular what are the defining dimensions in preserving and expanding the public domain in terms of spatial data ownership, personal privacy, data security, data reli-ability, liability, government data access policies, trust relationships, and economic approaches? Being informed by those dimensions or limits, what combined legal, technological, and institutional models might expand or provide more meaningful access for the public to spatial data and services? How can these models be used to reconcile the interests of public, private, corporate, and governments in the sustainable use of spatial data?


To address these issues there is need for a combination of surveys and comparative studies monitoring the evolution of both economic and legal frameworks and their impacts on the provi-sion of spatial data through a variety of regimes: public domain, dissemination costs, market costs.

The evolving nature of policy frameworks for access needs careful monitoring and evaluation. In particular, we are seeing an emerging trend towards the regulation of public sector bodies in Europe, together with legislation on human rights, freedom of in-formation and data protection. The impacts of these developments on the availability of spatial data can be usefully benchmarked against developments in the US. Further, comparison of infor-mation law and economic policies and their impacts among the different States in Europe as well as among the different States in the US are fertile ground for comparative studies.

The analysis of impacts needs also a much better understand-ing of the development of the market for geographic information products and services. The role of government versus the role of the commercial sector in the provisioning of geographic data and services is a critically important question begging investigation by the research community. Intermediaries and value-adders are taking an increasingly prominent role and many actors are in a fuzzy zone between private and public sector. As current statistical classifica-tions are inadequate in capturing the size and evolution of this sec-tor, and more generically of the digital content sector, there is a need to work closely with international organizations (OECD, EU) and statistical offices in the US and Europe to develop an appropriate framework for analyzing the emerging value adder market.

Closely related to the analysis of this market, there is a need to study current and evolving business models for geographic information. The regulatory frameworks and models of public good companies (utilities) may provide a useful starting point for analysis.

Finally, there is a need to develop measures of impacts of data access and sharing that go beyond the economic value, and focus specifically on social processes, with particular attention paid to loss of privacy, increased social exclusion, and loss of human rights versus increase in corporate rights over proprietary control in data. What is an appropriate framework to measure such impacts? Can indicators be developed that are robustly anchored to theory?

Geographies of AccessThis line of enquiry needs to focus on the impact of socially grounded relationships on access to data (in all its facets) as well as the reverse perspective, i.e. how access to data can affect grounded spatial decision making and spatial behavior. There are at least three levels at which these impacts can be explored. i) There is the level of the individual or small communities of

interest and their relationships with their surrounding social and economic environment, which affect their ability to access, interpret, and use geographic information effectively. Current debates on information haves and have-nots or electronic inclusion are clearly part of this strand.

ii) A second level pertains to the social relationships between organizations which affect the perceived reliability, and sense of trust of the “other” and hence the extent and nature of approaches to sharing data or providing access to data.

iii) The third level is more geographic in character in that it can analyze the urban-rural dimension of access. There is already plenty of evidence that centers of power in the “traditional economy” are being maintained in the information economy. Hence cities remain the privileged locus of access, learning, and economic activity in the Information Society. How can these frameworks be altered to distribute more evenly the potential benefits accruing from increased access to information? How may individuals or institutions redefine and expand the social footprint within which access issues are played out? Again comparative case studies may be the most productive way to address these complex issues, which require depth of analysis rather than breadth of coverage.

Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic InformationThe research concern with participatory approaches in using geographic information is a reflection of the increasing effort in society to move the use of GIS beyond the exclusive domain of technical and professional elites towards more inclusive use by non-government organizations and the public. The participants at the workshop recognised that the issues involved in participatory ap-proaches span across several dimensions, including different notions of public participation, ways in which “the public” uses geographic information (including paper maps), the contribution of informa-tion and communication technologies to public participation, and finally the use of GIS for public participation. For this reason, the broader heading of Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information was chosen for this meeting rather than the more commonly used term of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). With this in mind, the findings of the discussions are grouped under three broad categories: research support structures, participation and technology intersections, and theoretical issues.

Research Support StructuresIn spite of the growing use of geographic information for public participation in a variety of policy settings on both sides of the Atlantic, they often tend, for their very nature, to be very localized one-off projects with little monitoring over time of subsequent developments and impacts. Hence there is a need to develop a better understanding of these efforts and appropriate frameworks for their evaluation. Two areas are of immediate concern.

The first is the need to collect and critically evaluate the dispersed materials that researchers have been producing on this subject over the past twenty years. Bibliographic references, lists of contacts and dedicated websites are all useful elements that need to be developed further.

Refereed work offers an opportunity for this material to be presented for general consumption in the academic community.


However, the nature of the subject involves many stakeholders from non-academic backgrounds (including practitioners, voluntary sec-tor workers and citizens/communities) who would benefit from seeing how projects have been conducted. It is therefore important that a dedicated website (or linked collection of sites) includes eas-ily understood versions of descriptions (from science, practice and the ‘expert’ contributions from the community) and a place where ‘works-in-progress’ can be presented to further actors’ understand-ing. This issue of recording the development of activities relates to the second area of concern.

There is clear need to develop a methodological framework for monitoring and evaluating participatory geographic information projects. Given the varied nature of those involved in participatory activities there is a need to pay particular attention to the social, political, technological and geographical context of projects and how such projects reflect on the theoretical understanding of tech-nological development and practice. Such framework is particularly important to carry out comparative trans-national work, and needs developing with contributions from all the disciplines engaged in participatory activities and cross-national comparative evaluations. Moreover, the contributions must include, not only academia but also practitioners, users, and the many organizations in both pub-lic and private sector involved in delivering spatial information to citizens for decision-making purposes and the procurement of project funding. Eliciting such contributions requires dedicated workshops and conferences in which face-to-face interactions and networking can be developed. The meeting in Spoleto was a first important step to bring together researchers from both sides of the Atlantic, which needs to be built upon and developed further with participation from numerous other stakeholders.

Participation and Technology IntersectionsThere are three main areas of research suggested by the workshop participants under this heading.i) Research is required on the extent to which the process of

participation and the output of such activity contributes to developing the users’ understanding of issues/debates, and what role geographic information and technology can play in influencing users’ understandings. It is important to recognize that different understandings of participation and technology will influence the activities that take place. For example, actors may have different views of what the technology can be used for as well as the purpose of any consultation exercise, as participation is conditioned by multiple contexts (cultural, social, political and technological by specific problem domains). Examining prevalent normative managerial models of decision processes could help to map out these views. Having examined the constraints of such models (for example- culture, education, political circumstances, values or technological infrastructure) it may be possible to develop new models of public participation decision processes, which can guide the selection of appropriate decision support methods and tools.

ii) A second area of research should consider how different communities represent their ‘spatial stories’ using geographic information, and the contribution to such representations of existing technologies like groupware, 3D GIS, and virtual environments. This needs also to reflect the limitations of technology and of current metaphors and information structures for representing local knowledge. As an example, participants may choose to express their views in ways (qualitative, fuzzy) that a traditional Geographic Information System cannot readily handle. It is likely that in the future spatial multimedia will play a significant role but what techniques can be developed that can help capture this information to allow researchers/mediators to include non-traditional forms of expression for the purposes of display and analysis during a participatory exercise? It is paramount that when exploring this issue that users are made aware of what is happening to their ideas in ways that they can comprehend, and not present a barrier to participation that is appropriate for the activity they are engaged in.

iii) The third area of research should explore geographic information technology-based learning environments for public participation. This is partly an issue of observing human-computer interaction in the context participatory projects as well as the process of learning a “geographic language” for non-experts. These issues can be explored through a number of approaches ranging from (a) qualitative research into users attitudes to (b) the way they are taught and use geographic information and related technologies to (c) more mainstream psychological/behavioral/cognitive experiments and recording methods. Cultural differences in approaches and interactions to space and technology need systematic evaluation through comparative methodologies in international settings.

Theoretical IssuesDeveloping a strong theoretical framework for researching par-ticipatory approaches using geographic information requires the contribution of many different disciplines. Three areas in particular where identified as priority for action: i) There is a strong need to develop more formal models of the

interrelationships between access to information and public participation. Alongside community specification of the issues they see as critical, access to information is the starting point of many participatory activities, with local information and local issues, in particular, readily adopted and understood by citizens/users. Whilst there are major policy initiatives to increase access to information, what differences do they make to participatory activities? What information is critical? And “whose” information?

ii) The nature and forms of public participation need also to be more clearly articulated. Public participation is not a unique and shared construct. It is complicated process with multiple meanings that lead to numerous expectations. It is important to explore how various actors involved in participatory approaches in using geographic information conceptualize and


define their views of public participation. Similarly, there is a need to explore and explain the processes of empowerment and marginalization that can occur with the application of any vehicle for public participation, such as the Internet or GIS. A corollary of this is to determine what “empowerment” or “marginalization” mean in the context of information and communication technologies and GIS.

iii) The issue of “jumping scale” needs particular attention in participatory approaches. Examples exist of participatory initiatives contributing to more global debates outside of the immediate context of the issue that participants may initially find themselves. In both the US and Europe, there is an increasing interest in the connection between local understanding and regional decision-making. There is also an issue about locally-based information contributing to more strategic decision-making, as seen through the increasing number of environmental policy initiatives being developed in Europe or the dependence on local data for building the National Spatial Data Infrastructure in the US. Additionally, an issue that would appear as an isolated example can gain importance if it is found to be relevant or replicated elsewhere. Sharing information about participatory activities and issues emerging therein have impacts that go beyond the purely research arena and affect policy and advocacy.

Concluding RemarksThe three priority areas of research outlined above under Access to Geographic Information and the three priority areas outlined under Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information obviously are not exclusive nor are they comprehensive. Rather, these identified areas provide facets of a research agenda of grow-ing importance since so many untested assumptions continue to characterize current policy debates on these issues.

As indicated, it is crucial that the field has an opportunity to come together to share the many experiences that are taking place and to seek contributions from other relevant disciplines in the social sciences. At present many promising research projects are cut short or do not link to more strategic explorations of the im-pact of public participation and the role of space and information technology. Given the influence of access and participatory issues on local and national communities and given the nature of many of the research topics, there is a need to conduct more extensive longitudinal projects. Moreover, it is crucial to develop transna-tional collaboration in the design of relevant research methods so that systematic comparison and evaluation is made possible, and we truly get to a whole that is greater than the individual parts. To this end this meeting has made an important first step.

ReferencesBorgman J. and W. Früwald, eds., Report on the Strengths and

Weaknesses of European Science. Strasbourg: ESF, 1997. Burrough, P., M. Craglia, I. Masser and F. Salgé, Geographic infor-

mation: the European dimension, position statement on behalf of the European Science Foundation Scientific Programme on geographic information systems: data integration and database design, GISDATA, European Science Foundation, 1997.

Craglia, M., A. Annoni, and I. Masser, Geographic Information Policies in Europe: National and Regional Perspectives, Pro-ceedings of the EUROGI-EC Data Policy Workshop, 1999

Craig, W., T. Harris, and D. Weiner, Empowerment, Margin-alization and Public Participation GIS: Report of Varenius Workshop, NCGIA, Feb 1999

GIScience Research Agendas:AGILE (http://castafiore.uni-muenster.de/agile/Themes_

Topics/Themes_main.htm l)UCGIS (http://www.ucgis.org/research98.html)Emerging Themes in GIScience Research (http://

www.ucgis.org/oregon/agendas.html#resplen)NCGIA (http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/varenius/vmtgs.html)

Harris, T. and D. Weiner, eds., Specialist Meeting Report 96-7: GIS and Society: The Social Implications of How People, Space, and Environment are Represented in GIS - Scientific Report for the Initiative 19 Specialist Meeting, NCGIA, 1996

Janelle, D. and D. Hodge, eds., Measuring and Representing Accessibility in the Information Age: Research Conference Report, Nov 1998 (www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/varenius/access/ACCESS_rpt.html)

Masser I., Governments and Geographic Information. Taylor & Francis, 1998

Newby, H., Nowotny, H., Alsop, A., Smith, J., Social Science in the Context of the European Communities, in The ESF and the Social Sciences, European Science Foundation, Strasbourg, 1992


List of Participants in the Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information held in Spoleto, Italy, 5th-9th December 2001

United StatesChristina DrewGregory ElmesRhina GhoseSusan HansonFrancis HarveyPiotr JankowskiMelinda LaituriKate LanceMeg MerrickSarah NilesYvette PluijmersHarlan OnsrudLaxmi RamasubbramanianDavid TullochDaniel WeinerRob Rugg

EuropeMike BattyMario BoffiSteve CarverMax CragliaErik De ManIan MasserUta Wehn de MontalvoEva PauknerovaJonathan RaperMauro SalveminiAke SivertunRobin SmithFranco Vico

AcknowledgementThis report is based upon work and a workshop supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0098389 and the European Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclu-sions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the European Science Foundation.

16 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Ghose, Elwood 17


IntroductionOver the past decade, with simultaneous growth in the use of Geographic Information Science (GIS) by community groups and non-governmental organizations and the development of a research agenda exploring the impact of such GIS use, con-siderable focus has emerged on the issue of access to geographic information and on participatory approaches to using such infor-mation, particularly through GIS-based spatial analysis. In urban neighborhoods in the United States, unprecedented numbers of community organizations are adopting and using this technology in their planning and neighborhood revitalization activities (Kel-logg 1999, Ghose 2001, Ghose and Huxhold 2001, 2002, Elwood 2002b). Previous research suggested that access to geographic data and participatory approaches to GIS use have an important bear-ing on the social and political implications of GIS, particularly for marginalized institutions and social groups (c.f. Ghose and Huxhold 2001, Ramasubramanian 2001, Elwood 2002a, Har-ris and Weiner 2002, Sieber 2002). The articles collected in this issue (and the European Science Foundation/National Science Foundation (ESF/NSF) workshop from which they emerge) represent an important opportunity for GIS scholars to review progress made within this research agenda, identify key issues within the rapidly emerging Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) research agenda, and chart critical research directions for the future. In this short response article, we relate some of our own research findings to the propositions of the research agenda being generated for PPGIS research.

Key issues in critical GIS research span a diverse array of topics – differing national level procedures for spatial data access (Craglia and Masser 2001), effective PPGIS practices from ini-tiatives around the world (Weiner et al. 2001), and the use and impact of digital geographic data in spatial decision making (c.f.,

Public Participation GIS and Local Political Context: Propositions and Research Directions

Rina Ghose and Sarah Elwood

Abstract: Recent discussions in Public Participation Geographic Information Science (PPGIS) research highlight the importance of examining the local contextual factors that shape the PPGIS process. Through ongoing comparative case-study research, we are specifying the local contextual factors that influence PPGIS production and neighborhood planning activities. Using the case of Milwaukee, this article explores the complexity embedded in the local political context that affects the nature of citizen participation and the effectiveness and sustainability of PPGIS initiatives among community-based organizations. Studies on PPGIS initiatives related to community development in cities in the United States have mainly explored the role of the local state in shaping GIS and citizen participation. Our research indicates that the local political context is not a singular/unified factor, but must be assessed as a complicated set of interrelated relationships among multiple government and non-governmen-tal institutions, positioned at different scales, that play an interconnected role in shaping the processes of participation and of PPGIS production.

Laituri 2001, Ramasubramanian 2001, Smith 2001). Although their areas of inquiry are quite diverse, the conference articles develop a common argument that geographic data access and PP-GIS projects are highly contingent on and strongly shaped by the local context in which they are situated. Carver (2001) and Elmes (2001), for instance, suggest that space and place (particularly local contexts) play an important role in shaping participatory approaches to spatial decision making. Weiner et al. (2001) further contend that the nature of these participatory processes is crucial to understanding the differential impact of PPGIS initiatives for the individuals and communities affected by them.

An important theme emerging from the discussions at the conference is the notion that local contextual factors are impor-tant determinants in shaping access to spatial data as well as the sustainability and effectiveness of participatory GIS endeavors in which it might be employed. The discussions have also suggested to us a useful framework for considering anew the theoretical and empirical contributions of research in PPGIS. While much has been written about the importance of local political context, not a great deal of specific investigation has been carried out as to its particular role in shaping PPGIS production and impact, nor has there been a great deal of elucidation of specific factors that might make up relevant aspects of such local political con-text that shapes PPGIS. Through our research, we inquire into the complexities of the local political context and explore their influence in shaping the nature of citizen participation as well as the PPGIS process in marginalized and distressed inner-city neighborhoods of the U.S. In this article, we demonstrate that the local political context encompasses a complicated set of factors, involving multiple actors and institutions playing interconnected roles in shaping the processes of participation and of PPGIS pro-duction. Thus, in this article, we use evidence from an ongoing


research project to suggest some preliminary ways to specify and detail crucial elements of local political context, and to show how they affect PPGIS and the participatory processes with which it engages. This effort to identify crucial elements of local political context and understand their role in shaping PPGIS production, particularly the effectiveness and sustainability of PPGIS initia-tives, contributes to recent efforts within critical GIS studies to more fully theorize PPGIS processes and impact.

PPGIS and Local ContingencyResearch examining the societal implications of GIS has illustrated the contingent nature of these impact, showing a number of key factors affecting access to and impact of GIS. The work of Harris and Weiner (1998, 2002) has been especially important in illus-trating the contingent nature of the social and political impacts of GIS, demonstrating how these impacts are shaped by social, political, and economic power relations structured at multiple scales of interaction. In particular, their research has shown how unequal power relations can differentially affect access to GIS and digital data, as well as control over the representations and analyses created with the technology. Existing studies of GIS use by community-based or non-profit organizations in urban revitalization further identify key stakeholders and relationships affecting this process. Sieber (2000a, 2000b) and Ramasubrama-nian (1998) have shown how the use and impact of GIS may be shaped by organizational capacities and characteristics, noting that grassroots, non-profit, and community-based organizations have unique needs and resources with respect to GIS and digital data access and application. Other researchers note the importance of locally determined opportunities for digital data access by com-munity-based organizations, as well as the critical role played by other government or non-governmental organizations that may be available locally to support the technology acquisition and application efforts of community groups (Barndt and Craig 1994, Sawicki and Craig 1996, Barndt 1998, 2002, Sawicki and Peterman 2002). Finally, a number of researchers suggest that the use of GIS by community-based organizations active in urban revitalization efforts may be shaped by the openness of local gov-ernments to including these organizations as participants and to sharing financial and informational resources necessary for GIS use (Elwood and Leitner 1998, Leitner et al. 2000, Ghose and Huxhold 2002b).

In the context of PPGIS as part of urban planning and revital-ization efforts, the ideas developed in existing critical GIS research suggest the necessity of considering how PPGIS production might be shaped by relationships between local government actors and institutions and community-based organizations. In particular, it is important to consider precisely how these relationships shape the local opportunity structures of citizen participation, digital data access, technology access and use, and, ultimately, PPGIS production. Understanding the capacity and effectiveness of pub-lic participation GIS efforts in a place requires conceptualization of how the efforts are contingent upon aspects of local political context. Building such a conceptualization of how local political

context shaped PPGIS production in urban revitalization efforts is particularly important, given the expanding role of commu-nity-based organizations in this process. In the current climate of declining resources for revitalization, service delivery, and problem solving, citizen-based organizations are assuming greater direct responsibilities for these tasks – in effect becoming ever more re-sponsible for meeting the needs of some of the most disadvantaged people and places in American cities. Although debate about the impact of PPGIS in this context continue, there is at least some evidence that organizations and citizens from socially, politically, and economically marginalized places have experienced PPGIS as an effective process informing their revitalization efforts and strengthening their capacity to advocate on behalf of their com-munities (c.f., Bosworth et al. 2002, Elwood 2002b, Ghose and Huxhold 2002, Parker and Pascual 2002). For these reasons, it is crucial to build a stronger theoretical understanding of PPGIS production – particularly the role of local political context in shaping its effectiveness and sustainability.

In this article, we begin this conceptualization by illustrating several ways in which local political context affects the nature of participatory processes among traditionally marginalized citizens in urban governance, the nature of PPGIS initiatives among com-munity-based organizations, and the effectiveness and sustain-ability of PPGIS initiatives. With an eye toward recent calls in PPGIS research for case studies investigating the role of space, place and locality in shaping the differential impact of PPGIS, we explore the ways in which such local factors affect the nature of citizen participation and the sustainability of their PPGIS efforts. This article is developed from analysis of data gathered as part of a comparative study of PPGIS initiatives involving grassroots or-ganizations formed by traditionally marginalized citizens in Min-neapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee engaged in PPGIS initiatives in which their GIS use is directed toward facilitating greater citizen participation in urban governance and inner-city revitalization efforts. In our research project, we relied upon ethnographic data collection techniques, including intensive interviewing, archival research, participant observations, and document analysis. In this brief response article engaging the research agenda developed at the Spoleto conference, we present some of our findings from the Milwaukee portion of this project. Much of the data discussed here are derived from interviews with local government officials, local technology and data providers, and community organiza-tion staff members. We have also undertaken in-depth analysis of documents and maps produced by actors and institutions as part of their planning, neighborhood revitalization, or PPGIS activities. Comparative analysis of PPGIS efforts by six commu-nity organizations in Milwaukee shows that PPGIS production is shaped by the interlocking relationships among local state actors, local technical assistance providers, and community organizations, as these actors are simultaneously involved in PPGIS production, neighborhood planning, and revitalization.


The Role of Local Political Context in Enhancing and Limiting PPGIS ProductionMilwaukee is a particularly appropriate case to examine the process of PPGIS, citizen participation in neighborhood revital-ization, and the role of local state actors and policies in shaping both. Over the last decade, PPGIS in Milwaukee has become a central element of multiple collaborative strategies between the local government agencies, community stakeholder institutions, and local citizens in their efforts to battle high rates of poverty, crime, disinvestment, unemployment, and urban blight in in-ner-city neighborhoods. The citizen-based grassroots community organizations of inner-city Milwaukee are themselves relatively resource poor, suffering from strong financial constraints that seri-ously limit their abilities to purchase data, software, hardware or to be able to afford/retain staff members well versed in computer technology, GIS, and spatial analysis. Despite these challenges, some of these organizations have successfully employed GIS in their efforts to revitalize their neighborhoods.

Milwaukee is also a useful case study in which to examine PPGIS because of the complex network of governmental and non-governmental institutions that have been engaged in PPGIS production locally. The local government agencies in Milwaukee have a long history of using GIS and spatial information in their urban planning tasks and have also been relatively supportive of efforts to facilitate citizen access to spatial data and GIS (Ghose and Huxhold 2001). The City of Milwaukee has also developed Map Milwaukee, an Internet-based GIS in which citizens can retrieve information through parcel-based queries, choosing from a variety of mapping options. PPGIS and citizen participation initiatives in Milwaukee have been supported by a dense network of institutions that have provided technical and analytical expertise for GIS access and spatial analysis, as well as for neighborhood revitalization planning (Ghose and Huxhold 2001). Supporting institutions include (but are not limited to) the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Non-Profit Center, the Milwaukee branch of the Local Initiative Support Coalition, and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Associa-tion. Data sharing and data development activities between these supporting institutions and the City of Milwaukee have strongly enabled the development of PPGIS initiatives. Citizen participa-tion is further facilitated by a larger number of well-established (albeit resource poor) community organizations that have been actively engaged in their own neighborhood-level improvement efforts and in revitalization planning initiatives of the City of Milwaukee. Among such state-directed revitalization programs, the Neighborhood Strategic Planning (NSP) program has been an important vehicle through which community organizations have been both engaged in revitalization efforts informed and sup-ported by PPGIS applications. This complex set of relationships through which PPGIS and citizen participation are structured in Milwaukee simultaneously restricts and enables PPGIS initiatives of its community development organizations.

With respect to the role of local political context in shaping PPGIS initiatives, our research indicates that this “context” is not a singular unified factor, but must be assessed as a complicated set of interrelated factors. Multiple government and non-governmental institutions, positioned at different scales, play an interconnected role in shaping the processes of participation and of PPGIS pro-duction. In Milwaukee, key government agencies engaged in neighborhood revitalization efforts include the Department of City Development and Department of Neighborhood Services within the City of Milwaukee, and the federally funded Com-munity Block Grant Administration (CBGA), whose revitaliza-tion initiatives are carried out separately. These institutions share a common goal of improving the quality of life and economic opportunities in the inner-city neighborhoods of Milwaukee, but their vision of and structures for citizen participation differ dramatically.

Inner-city neighborhood revitalization projects undertaken by the Department of City Development and Department of Neighborhood Services are usually pre-determined by the city departments, and citizen participation occurs through public meetings held with neighborhood residents and community organizations in an affected area. In our interviews, community organization staff explained that in such meetings with officials from these two local government offices, their expected role as community representatives is to present the neighborhood’s issues and concerns. Several staff members further commented that dur-ing these meetings, they are expected to provide formal presenta-tions of their neighborhood’s issues and concerns, supported with neighborhood statistics, thematic maps, and, if possible, spatial analysis. They explained that the emphasis placed on such “hard data” by the city departments has motivated their organizations to pursue the collection and analysis of spatial data using GIS.

In contrast, the Community Block Grant Administration has fostered citizen participation through the Neighborhood Strategic Planning program, which enables greater neighborhood involve-ment in creating revitalization goals and programs. Through the NSP program, each neighborhood organization in the city has carried out a so-called “SWOT” analysis identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and used the results of this analysis to formulate a strategic plan. These plans typically engage a wide array of issues, such as crime mitigation, development of youth programs, employment opportunities, job training, hous-ing rehabilitation, tenant advocacy, health care, and recreational opportunities. The NSP process has been a particularly important motivation for local community organizations to pursue PPGIS initiatives since the CBGA has mandated the use of neighbor-hood statistics, spatial and thematic maps in the NSP strategic plans. The CBGA has tried to make it possible for community groups to fulfill this requirement by funding the Data Center Program of the Non-Profit Center to provide the organizations with customized data, statistical analysis, and thematic maps for their NSP plans.

It is important to note that the Milwaukee CBGA office is an institution positioned separately from Milwaukee’s Depart-


ment of City Development and Department of Neighborhood Services, and it responds to federal-level priorities for urban re-vitalization. Aside from the opportunity of greater participation, the NSP process is critical for community organizations for its financial aspect because it is directly tied to the distribution of federal funds. The CBGA oversees the distribution of CBGA funds that it has received over a number of years from the federal agency of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the purpose of revitalizing neighborhoods. HUD as a powerful federal agency imposes its own vision of the citizen participation process as a mandate upon the distribution agen-cies. Consequently, the CBGA “relies on neighborhood strategic planning as the best way to target funds effectively, because it identifies the needs of an entire neighborhood instead of basing decisions on individual agencies’ budget demands” (Huxhold and Martin 1996:54). Here we find the process of citizen participa-tion essentially being conceptualized at a national scale and then enacted at a local scale, which further adds to the complexity of the local political context and, as we will show, affects the PPGIS efforts of Milwaukee community organizations.

The role of the local political context as an influential factor in the PPGIS process is further complicated by the dif-ferential power positions occupied by the various participants. At the most general level, local government entities hold a more powerful position than the community organizations and have established different modes of participation that the community organizations are compelled to accept if they wish to receive the funding connected to such modes of participation. Moreover, the CBGA and the City Hall departments do not share within themselves the varying inputs, visions, and documents that they have received from the citizens of Milwaukee. Thus, the formal strategic plans received by the CBGA are never viewed by the City of Milwaukee’s Department of Neighborhood Services or Department of City Development, both departments that are in fact heavily involved in implementation of neighborhood revitalization programs. Similarly, these departments do not share the information from their meetings with the community organizations with the CBGA. Thus, citizens and community organizations end up either duplicating the input process (which costs them extra time) or having their input received by only one government agency instead of both.

Our interviews with Milwaukee community organizers il-lustrate a number of ways in which the structures for citizen par-ticipation in NSP and the requirements for GIS analysis together limit the utility of the information produced for these organiza-tions (Metcalfe Park Residents Association 2000, Harambee 2001, Lisbon Avenue Neighborhood Development 2001, Sherman Park Community Association 2001). To the organizers, the extent of citizen participation through the NSP process is quite limited because the NSP vision plans of the citizens are ultimately read only by the CBGA and, the organizers contend, are disregarded by other government agencies responsible for neighborhood plan-ning. Related to this problem is the fact that PPGIS initiatives in Milwaukee were designed to help the citizens formulate their

NSP vision plans. This disjuncture between the strategic plan-ning initiatives of NSP and the implementation of broad-based revitalization efforts by the City of Milwaukee’s Department of City Development and Department of Neighborhood Services has meant that community organization staff and residents invested a great deal of time in undertaking a complex PPGIS effort and producing strategic plans whose elements have largely not been implemented in the actual planning process. As one community organizer commented “The residents worked with the neighbor-hood strategic planning process [because] they [local government agencies] told people, ‘come tell us what your suggestions are, how do we go through this visioning process, what do you want your neighborhoods to look like? Put together these strategies, and suggestion, let us know how you want money coming into your neighborhood.’ But as politics goes … you had two differ-ent political entities to deal with, [City Hall and CBGA]. The residents felt … that they made suggestions and the answers that they gave weren’t really taken in consideration. And they felt burned out by the process. They felt it was ineffective … And so it was [still is] very difficult to reinvigorate people to get once again, involved in the [NSP] process” (Lisbon Area Neighborhood Development 2001).

Many community organizers in Milwaukee are also unfamil-iar with the concepts and strengths of statistics or spatial analysis and the techniques of GIS, and had to develop a level of under-standing of these in order to use them in their NSP plans. During the 1999 phase of the NSP process, the CBGA mandated the use of Data Center-generated tables, statistics, and thematic maps in their strategic plans. While some community organizations viewed these instructions as well-intentioned advice that actually aided in their planning process, other organizations were resentful of such mandates and barely analyzed the data and maps in their plans. As one community organizer noted, “[Data and GIS generated maps were] definitely in it [NSP plans] because it was required, no question. I wouldn’t have put too many of those in there myself. In fact, I didn’t put all of them in” (Sherman Park Community Residents Association 2001). This sentiment is echoed by a former CBGA staff member who administered NSP plans, “In many ways what they [community organizations] simply did was to put the tabular runs that the Non-Profit Center had done, just put it right there [in their NSP document]. In some cases, it was my feeling they didn’t even analyze the data, they just included it” (Martin 2000).

In keeping with the participatory intent of the NSP program, community organizations were expected to involve a large num-ber of their citizens in the planning process. Program guidelines mandated a minimum of 300 interviews with residents in the planning process – an extremely important community participa-tion activity, but a frustrating endeavor if the resulting priorities are not acted upon. Many community organizers, while not un-derestimating the importance of citizen participation, questioned the effectiveness of such numerical quotas for involvement. One organizer said, “It’s nice to have some sort of quotas or objectives in the sense of can we strive to have a certain percentage, or number


of people really becomes involved. But, it became a mandate – you must go out and get so many people to answer this, and that is a silly mandate” (Sherman Park Community Residents Association 2001). Commenting upon the politics of citizen participation, another community organizer mentioned “In terms of rhetoric, it’s a wonderful idea … [but then] you get politics, you get who has the upper hand in a situation … I think that neighborhood planning and citizen participation in a process of neighborhood improvement can work … [but] I think it cannot be dictated or commissioned by the city” (Lisbon Area Neighborhood Develop-ment 2001). Reflecting on the difficulties of fulfilling these man-dates, one University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee faculty member who has frequently collaborated with community organizations suggested that perhaps the community organizations had not been given adequate resources to support the strategic planning and PPGIS efforts, saying, “… that’s what a lot of the [community organizations] complained about, that it’s a big job, we don’t have the resources to really get at it” (Sanders 2001). Moreover, some organizers we interviewed felt that limited resources, high expectations, and perceptions of limited impact of the NSP diminished community support for GIS-based spatial analysis within their revitalization efforts. Residents were disinclined to invest extensive time and resources in PPGIS, because they saw it as linked to the NSP process, which, in their opinion “… was not taken very seriously” and consequently “are burned out on neighborhood strategic planning” (Lisbon Area Neighborhood Development 2001).

On the other hand, certain community organizations in Milwaukee have taken strong advantage of the NSP participa-tory process and PPGIS initiatives and have been able to make their voices heard at the key departments within the City Hall. Such organizations have commented that the NSP process has made them better organized and better able to articulate their concerns and configure their strategies (Harambee 2001, Lisbon Avenue Neighborhood Development 2001, NorthWest Side CDC 2001, WAICO-YMCA 2001). These organizations have discovered that the data analysis and strategic plans created to meet NSP requirements are equally useful in demonstrating to other federal, state, or local agencies, and to private foundations and entrepreneurs that the community has clearly articulated revitalization goals and strategies. However, not all organizations in the city have experienced similar benefits from their involve-ment in the NSP program. According to a University faculty member who worked as a consultant for several organizations creating NSP plans, “… the NSP process … has worked as well as the agencies responsible cooperating. It’s based on their competency, [and] their capacities” (Sanders 2001). Our further investigation of the differential impact of NSP suggests that key organizational factors (such as knowledge, stability, capacity, and leadership) are indeed differentially affecting the ways in which community organizations in Milwaukee are engaging with local political structures and GIS opportunities in their PPGIS activi-ties (Elwood and Ghose 2002). Thus, while some of the politi-cal structures of planning and PPGIS production in Milwaukee

have limited the utility of spatial analysis created by community organizations, certain organizations have been able to use their PPGIS products in leveraging funding and other opportunities from alternative sources.

The presence of alternative avenues for community organi-zations to access PPGIS and use their spatial analysis to leverage new opportunities has been enabled through the dense network of actors providing alternative GIS support in Milwaukee. For instance, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee partners assisted the WAICO-YMCA community organization in carrying out a complex GIS-based study assessing quality-of-life indicators in their neighborhood compared to those of other inner-city neigh-borhoods and the city as a whole (Ghose and Huxhold 2002). WAICO then took the results of this complex, multi-scalar study to the City Hall and was able to convince them to formulate a Tax Increment Financing District in their neighborhood. Other Milwaukee organizations have created different strategies for ac-cessing technological assistance and generating spatial data and analysis. The NorthWest Side Community Development Cor-poration (CDC) has engaged in partnerships with the University over a number of years to formulate their strategies and have used geographic information from their neighborhood to launch an Internet-based cyber-organizing program called Neighborhood Net, through which they have very successfully made their voices heard in the City Hall (NorthWest Side CDC 2001). Another community organization, Lisbon Avenue Neighborhood Develop-ment, has drawn on their partnership with University graduate and undergraduate interns for such assistance, receiving a feasibil-ity study and needs assessment for GIS implementation and, later, assistance in beginning to use their GIS. Of course, the capacity of a community organization to access spatial analysis assistance from supporting institutions varies. In Milwaukee, the organiza-tions with greatest success in such partnerships tended to be those with pre-existing technology and spatial analysis experiences, a stable resource base, histories of collaborative partnerships, and strong internal support for such collaborations.

Our research then indicated that while the complicated con-textual factors in which PPGIS is produced and implemented can constrain community organizations’ PPGIS activities and limit the impact of their spatial analysis in decision-making processes that affect them, this complexity can create opportunities as well. If some actors and institutions limit PPGIS efforts and citizen participation, community groups can and do form collaborations with other actors and institutions that can assist their PPGIS de-velopment and their efforts to insert their spatial analysis into the local planning arena. As Sieber (1997) argued of environmental non-governmental organizations, some urban community orga-nizations develop effective ways of circumventing limitations on their GIS use. Our research suggests that this is made possible through multi-layered collaborations – cooperating with multiple institutions involved in PPGIS production and neighborhood revitalization planning.


Future DirectionsPast research has called for investigating the ways in which lo-cal political context shapes GIS use, information access, and participation in these endeavors, calling for evaluation of such factors as the openness of local government to sharing neces-sary resources for urban GIS analysis (such as government-col-lected data on housing conditions or tax valuations), openness to including community groups as authoritative participants in planning, and local government agencies’ own experience and expertise with using GIS for urban applications (Sieber 1997, Elwood and Leitner 1998, Ramasubramanian 1998, Elwood 2000, Leitner et al. 2000). It is also critical to understand how the actions and involvements of other institutions intersect with local state initiatives in PPGIS production and citizen participa-tion. It is clear here that local political context shaping PPGIS is composed of multi-layered entities and also includes the role of non-governmental actors engaged in urban planning, neighbor-hood revitalization, and PPGIS production. As well, this case un-derscores the necessity of examining ties between different actors shaping the politics of PPGIS production and citizen involvement in local planning and revitalization. In Milwaukee, for instance, the Non-Profit Center and its Data Center program are involved in multiple aspects of both PPGIS production and community development. We would propose that continued study of these overlapping relationships and involvements in PPGIS and citizen participation is essential to understanding the differential impact of PPGIS, as well as clarifying links between information access and public participation – two key elements emerging in current discussions of a PPGIS research agenda.

About the Authors

Rina Ghose s Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests are in Public Participation GIS, Critical GIS, and Urban Geography.

Corresponding Address:Rina GhoseAssistant ProfessorUniversity of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeBolton Hall Room 462PO Box 413Milwaukee, WI 53201Phone: (414) 229-3981Fax: (414) [email protected]

Sarah Elwood is Assistant Professor of Geography at DePaul University. Her research interests include urban geography, neighborhood planning and development, Public Participa-tion GIS, and Urban Geography.

Corresponding Address:Sarah ElwoodAssistant ProfessorDepartment of GeographyDePaul University990 W. Fullerton, Suite 4400Chicago, IL 60614Phone: [email protected]

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding obtained through research grants from Illinois State University and DePaul Uni-versity. The authors are also grateful to NSF/ESF for providing funding for the Spoleto Conference.

This article is based partially upon work or participation in a workshop supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0098389 and the European Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the European Science Foundation.

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The Issue of Access: An Assessment Guide for Evaluating Public Participation Geographic

Information Science Case Studies

Melinda Laituri

Abstract: This article examines how technology mediates access to geographic information for public participation. Access consists of several components: context, connectivity, capabilities, and content. An assessment guide is introduced that defines a series of continuums for evaluating case studies that involve public participation and geographic information systems. The purpose of this article is to introduce a preliminary guide for assessing existing case studies to facilitate a dialogue for evaluating public participation, access, and geographic information systems. Seven case studies are examined.

IntroductionPublic Participation Geographic Information Science (PPGIS) is acknowledged as an important GIS activity but with little formal understanding of the theories and methodologies that researchers and participants have used. A Specialist Meeting held in Spoleto, Italy discussed trans-Atlantic PPGIS activity. One of the issues identified at this meeting was the need to assess PPGIS activities and, more specifically, to examine existing case studies to deter-mine what lessons have been learned, what types of case studies have been undertaken, and where the gaps exist in these case studies. Brandt (2002:356) raised a series of issues with regard to PPGIS and stated, “It may not be appropriate to compare apples and oranges, but as advocates for more effective use of information and GIS tools we should be seriously critiquing the whole fruit basket of alternatives as they proliferate.”

This article presents a preliminary guide for assessing exist-ing case studies in order to facilitate a dialogue to understand PPGIS projects to date. It is important to note that the initial ideas for this guide were discussed and developed amongst a group of scholars at the Spoleto meeting. In this article, I am representing some of their ideas and building on this joint effort. This guide is not theoretical in nature; it is an assessment tool to create an empirical basis for the evaluation and comparison of case studies through the identification of common characteristics across different contextual settings. This article is not an exhaus-tive examination of PPGIS projects, but a reflective exercise to implement this guide. Seven PPGIS case studies in which I have participated are examined.

PPGIS is the confluence of social activity (participatory activ-ities, grassroots organizations, governmental decision making, the Internet) and technology (computers, hardware, software, digital information, the Internet) in specific places – grounded geogra-phies (Niles and Hanson 2001). Nascent literature on PPGIS has emerged from the activities of many researchers, some of which can be found in the resulting articles from the National Center for

Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA)-sponsored Var-enius initiative (Craig et al. 1999), the NCGIA Initiative #19 GIS (Harris and Weiner 1996), and Society and other meetings such as the European Science Foundation/National Science Foundation (ESF/NSF) Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches Using Geographic Information (Craglia and Masser 2001). In Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems, Craig et al. (2002:8) identified “PPGIS as a broad tent with multiple meanings and a global reach” made up of “emerging forms of community interaction with GIS that are linked to the social and geographic context of PPGIS production and implementation.”

Geographic Information Science (GIS) is one aspect of sev-eral compatible and linked technologies (remote sensing, global positioning systems, and satellites) that are part of the “digital revolution.” The application of these technologies combines the complexity of the physical landscape with the human strata in the form of information that may be useful to a particular community or locality, a state or province, a nation, or even the world (e.g., global climate change). Sophisticated technologies create their own set of unique access issues of which power, education, and resources are of special interest.

Methods of participation in PPGIS are often circumscribed by technologically imposed structures. For example, digitally available data can be found on the Internet but may need to be downloaded and processed before viewing and analyzing in a compatible software package. For such projects, experts may need to be hired to create a database and conduct analysis. However, the coupling of public participation and GIS is a process that de-velops a synergy of its own where new forms of participation and empowerment can extend beyond the technological and digital environments. Access is more than the material connections to the virtual world. Access becomes a matter of skill, contacts, and education. Therefore, technology mediates access and influences participation.


Numerous case studies exist that exemplify PPGIS.

Access Assessment GuideAccess can be defined as a complex set of continuums manifested by a multifaceted Digital Divide of “haves” and “have nots.” These continuums address aspects of the PPGIS process focusing on ac-cess and technology, which is not exhaustive of the many different aspects of PPGIS. The United Nations Ministerial Declaration on Information Technology (2000) identified three aspects of information technologies in general that address issues related to access. I have adapted these and added a fourth for PPGIS: con-text, connectivity, capabilities, and content. These components are made up of a set of characteristics that can be understood as a series of continuums defined by key words (Table 1).

This assessment is designed to identify how technology me-diates access to PPGIS and focuses on technologically imposed structures: the physical infrastructure, the basic skills needed to conduct GIS, and the data.

1. “Context” is the setting that determines how technically imposed structures are accessed based upon the purpose

and participants in the project. Context includes: a) Purpose: What is the problem or issue being

addressed? • Simple Complex Project: Does the problem concern

simple single issues or does it address complex multiple issues?

• Day-to-day decisions Strategic outcomes: Does the project address day-to-day decisions or strategic outcomes over the long term?

b) Stakeholders: Who are the participants practicing PPGIS?

• Marginal Mainstream Elite: The relationship that a group of people have to the political/social process reveals how integrated that group is in the political process and how much power they have. Is PPGIS an avenue for participatory democracy?

c) Linkages: What linkages, partnerships, and relationships exist between the participants?

• Single Multiple agencies: Does it address multi-agency concerns? In the case of natural resource management, PPGIS demands integration across disciplines as well as across agencies.

• No trust Trust: Do the new interactions between different participants mean that trust must be built or does expertise, professional background and credentials satisfy the participants?

d) Unit of Analysis: How is place defined? • Local Regional Global: What is the unit of

analysis?

2. “Connectivity” identifies the technological infrastructure and the funding that is available for access to that infrastructure for PPGIS projects. Connectivity is made of two critical parts: a) Policies: • Donations Grants Funding: Explicit policies

of governments may exist to facilitate connections to remote and underpopulated areas and to provide oversight, guidance, and assistance to ensure the participation of markets and the private sector in this process. Generally, policies are not implemented unless there is funding available which may be in the form of donations, grants, or as an explicit line item in a budget (funding).

b) Infrastructure: An outcome of these activities and polices is the intersection of cyberspace and physical space – the materiality of cyberspace that is made up of points of access, the actual wires and links in the real world, as well as a set of linked technologies that provide access: modems, mobile phones, or mobile Internet.

• Urban Rural: Is the project in an urban, a suburban, or a rural setting? An unequal distribution of cyberspatial connections and bandwidth exists, particularly in rural areas and inner cities (Niles and Hanson 2001).

Components Continuums of Key Words

1. Context: a. Purpose

Simple Complex projectDay-to-day decisions Strategic outcomes

b. Stakeholders Marginal Mainstream Elite

c. Linkages Single Multiple agenciesNo trust Trust

d. Unit of Analysis Local Regional Global

2. Connectivity: a. Policies

Donations Grants Funding

b. Infrastructure Urban RuralNo technology Best technology

3. Capabilities: a. Basic literacy

Less educated More educated

b. Computer literacy

Novice Training Education

c. Spatial literacy Novice Training Education

4. Content: a. Data availability

Information rich Information poor

b. Data types Public data Sensitive dataNew data Inherited or existing dataQualitative data Quantitative data

Table 1: The components and continuums that can be used as a relative assessment tool for existing PPGIS projects.


• No technology ® Best technology: To what extent do project participants have access to the fundamental technology or state-of-the-art technology?

3. “Capabilities” determine how participants will interface with the technology. Capabilities are made up of three levels of literacy:a) Basic literacy (Less educated More educated) identifies

the educational level of the participants.b) Computer literacy (Novice Training Education)

includes the ability to operate and maintain computers. At its most basic, computer literacy means an understanding of keyboards, logging on, and basic skills in pointing and clicking a mouse. A subset of computer literacy is Internet-literacy, which means an understanding of the virtual world created by computer software programs and the ability to navigate in cyberspace: operating systems, web browsers, search engines, key words, and Web pages. Training is important for technology transfer and refers to government- or vendor-sponsored training programs. Education refers to individuals with degrees in computer science that may assist PPGIS projects.

c) Spatial literacy (Novice Training Education) translates into conceptual access to understand the underlying grid imposed by cartography (coordinate systems), geodesy (datum’s and projections), geospatial science (spatial analysis), and digital information (raster, vector, triangular irregular networks (TINs)) that includes terms generally not part of the everyday lexicon. In addition, it means understanding specialized software for GIS analyses, understanding digital data formats, and conveying results to different audiences. Experts may be needed to translate and transform information or training and education for the purposes of technology transfer.

4. Place-based “data” with local content are needed for many PPGIS projects. Content refers to data and information.a) Data availability:• Information rich Information poor: One end of this

spectrum is having the best available digital information to be used in a GIS. The other end is having little or no information. Are data available for place-based projects? Another important consideration is whether or not it is in the appropriate language. The information may be there, but not available to the potential users unless they have access to experts. 80% of Internet content is in English, of which one quarter of the world understands (Siefken 2000).

b) Data types: The questions of a PPGIS project include a variety of different data types at different spatial scales and of varying vintages. These may include physical, cultural, social, and environmental data of both a qualitative and quantitative nature.

• Public data Sensitive data: Public data refer to data that are available from governmental entities at little or no cost and may also include value-added data that can be purchased from a private vendor. Sensitive data refer to information that may be considered sensitive or sacred. Some projects may use both types of data and will need to determine methods to protect sensitive information and integrate with a larger database.

• New data Inherited or existing data: Integration of data types involves the use of new data (remotely sensed images) or the creation of new data (use of a global positioning system to collect field data) with inherited or existing data (topographical maps).

• Qualitative data Quantitative data: What happens to information that does not lend itself conceptually or easily to a digital environment? Cultural concepts are difficult to transform across the boundaries of language and technology. Alternatively, quantitative data fit into the framework of a GIS. Most biogeophysical data are quantitative.

Access can be analyzed through an assessment of these com-ponents: connectivity, capabilities, content, and context. These continuums provide a guide for a relative comparison of case studies. Case studies are examined and characterized to begin to assess the body of work that comprises PPGIS case studies.

Case Study AssessmentThese projects represent complex management situations that involve a cross-section of participants seeking to create bottom-up solutions to particular problems. A common characteristic is the notion that information access and assessment will enhance empowerment and consensus building amongst participants. The projects represent the integration of multidisciplinary, multifaceted, multi-agency issues that often focus on regional issues (Table 2).

The assessment guide is used as a calculus to evaluate case studies through a comparison of relative location on a series of continuums. The purpose of this exercise is to test this guide and to consider improvements and how they might be calibrated to add other case studies to begin the process of identifying the types of PPGIS projects that have been conducted to date.

This is a small subset of the numerous case studies that have been conducted for PPGIS. It focuses on issues related to access, but it is not exhaustive of these issues. It does not consider meth-odology or levels and types of participation – these are important aspects that should be added to the assessment guide.

Context“Context” provides the setting in which PPGIS projects take place that will influence how and what types of technology are accessed (Table 3). The purpose and unit of analysis are defined by the stakeholders with assistance from the contacts, networks,


Case Study Description

Colorado–Big Thompson Watershed Forum (C-BT)ahttp://btwatershed.org/Default.htm

The Watershed Forum is comprised of multiple governmental agencies at the federal and local levels, along with interested community members to develop a coopera-tive water quality information system that standardizes water quality monitoring between multiple agencies in the Big Thompson Watershed. A GIS was created to display land use and water quality information.

Wind Rivers Indian Reservation (WR)b The Wind Rivers Indian Reservation has a state-of-the-art GIS. Methods were developed in conjunction with university researchers to create a cultural database of water resource management activities to enhance the existing database.

Nogales, Arizona–Sonora Water Quality Project (Nog)c

A consortium of federal, state, and local government representatives, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and university researchers formed to address bi-national water quality and water resource management issues across the interna-tional boundary. A bi-national water quality GIS was developed.

Maori Economic Development (MED) Project b

Local community representatives and university researchers developed a cultural database of resources for economic development of three communities in New Zealand. A GIS was developed that incorporated culturally sensitive information with existing resource data.

Northern Colorado Plateau Network (NCPN)awww.cnr.colostate.edu/research/ncpn_nps

A network of National Parks in conjunction with other local landowners and uni-versity researchers developed a water quality information database for designing a water quality monitoring project. A GIS was created of all existing water quality information with other GIS data layers, such as land use, land ownership, geology, and hydrology.

Larimer County–Colorado State University Partnership (LC)a

Eight on-line projects were developed by graduate students at Colorado State Uni-versity in partnership with the Larimer County GIS Department. The purpose of the project was to utilize Larimer County data and develop methods for transferring information to the public. Projects include: identification and routing to recycling centers, access to bus routes for the elderly, fire hazard on the urban-rural fringe, and hiking, biking and skiing trails ranked by access and level of difficulty.

Poudre School District – Colorado State University Partnership (PSD)bwww.cnr.colostate.edu/avprojects/csu-psd

Thirty-eight on-line projects were developed by graduate students at Colorado State University in partnership with the Poudre School District. The purpose of the project was to develop GIS products for teachers to use in the classroom to meet geography, science, and mathematics standards. Projects are designed for K-12 levels and cover issues from local to global.

Table 2: The case studies and the purpose of each is described.a These projects are described on their Web sites. b These case studies are described in detail in Laituri, M., 2002, Ensuring Access to GIS for Marginal Societies. In Craig, W., T. Harris, and D.

Weiner (Eds.), 2002, Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems (London: Taylor and Francis), 270-282.c This project is described in Laituri, M., R. Hay, and G. Saxe, 1991, Generation of a GIS Database in a Transboundary Setting: Ambos

Nogales. In: Proceedings of Arizona Hydrological Society Fourth Annual Symposium, Survival in the Desert: Water Quality Issues, 30-35.

and linkages with other participants and agencies. Context is a dynamic setting in that the participants and networks are in a state of flux, with new participants joining or others leaving the project. In addition, the project will evolve as considerations regarding data availability and focus of the project are defined and refined.

Simple projects are regional and focus on a single issue. The Colorado–Big Thompson Watershed Forum (C-BT) and the Northern Colorado Plateau Network (NCPN) are water quality monitoring projects. The Larimer County–Colorado State Uni-versity Partnership (LC) and the Poudre School District–Colorado

State University Partnership (PSD) are designed to facilitate the use of GIS data for public consumption through single applica-tions. The participants are primarily members of the mainstream, with some representation from elite groups (e.g., elected officials and key decision makers). The relationship between participants is based on acceptance of expertise and credentials rather than building trust between cooperating groups. These projects have linkages with several other agencies, which may be due to the regional nature of the project where there exist many different jurisdictional boundaries.

The Wind Rivers Indian Reservation (WR), the Nogales,


Arizona–Sonora Water Quality Project (Nog), and the Maori Economic Development Project (MED) are all complex case stud-ies. The projects sought strategic outcomes for water resource management and economic development at the local level. The participants are members of what may be considered marginal social groups: First Peoples and Hispanics. Trust-building is an important component of these projects where professional ex-pertise and credentials are not adequate. Personal relationships have to be developed.

Connectivity“Connectivity” identifies the key elements of the technological infrastructure for PPGIS (Table 4). Not all PPGIS projects utilize all of the technology that informs GIS projects. However, for certain types of projects, access to this technology will be easier to obtain based purely on geography and the physical infrastructure already in place (Niles and Hanson 2001). Policies are another critical aspect of connectivity. Several federal agencies (the Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Agriculture-Forest Service, and the National Park Service) have explicit policies that demand public participation and input into resource planning. These agencies have solicited grants for com-munity projects, of which GIS may be an important tool.

While policies encourage public participation, the primary source of funding for these projects is through grants, donations, in-kind contributions, or some combination of all. The only proj-ect with explicit federal funding is the NCPN, where federal policies for water quality monitoring are well established. The LC and PSD projects began with educational grants from state

agencies. Currently, there is little or no funding for these projects and all activities are through volunteer efforts. The WR and MED projects specifically focus on developing a cultural information database to be included in their projects. This focus does not fit into governmental agency solicitations, and alternative funding is sought from private foundations.

These projects represent a diversity of geographic locations. The WR and MED are located in rural regions. The NCPN operates on National Park Service lands far from urban areas. Aspects of the C-BT, LC, and PSD projects include the urban-rural or urban-wildlands interface. Nog is an urban project. The geography of access reveals a wide disparity between projects. The NCPN and WR are well connected regardless of distance from urban centers. The reason may be their close association with governmental agencies. The C-BT, LC, and PSD reflect the hypothesis of Niles and Hanson (2001) that infrastructure will reflect existing patterns of access to technology. These projects are headquartered in urban centers with access to bandwidth, modems, computers, and the Internet. The MED and Nog projects have no on-site infrastructure. Access was facilitated by the university participants at campus locations.

Capabilities“Capabilities” refer to levels of literacy: basic, computer, and spatial (Table 4). Less education does not preclude little or no computer or spatial literacy. The importance of technology trans-fer for participants is revealed through the creation of training programs to learn GIS skills, which is an outcome of several of the projects. Access may be redefined during the PPGIS activity

Table 3: Context. This table defines the complexity of the PPGIS project, identifies the participants and linkages with other agencies and disciplines and considers the unit of analysis.


as participants gain ownership of their projects through such training activity.

The Nog and MED projects have participants with less education and little or no computer and GIS experience. The C-BT, NCPN, LC, and PSD have access to adequate technol-ogy, higher levels of education, and participants with computer experience. Three projects, the WR, NCPN, and LC, have some level of spatial literacy through training and education. The WR is unique with lower education levels, but with participants with higher levels of training in both computer and spatial literacy. Training programs in GIS have resulted from the MED, C-BT, and PSD projects. Additionally, all projects have access to GIS experts to assist in technology transfer and GIS translation.

Content“Content” refers to the data and information available for projects (Table 5). Data availability is a critical aspect of PPGIS. Data col-lection and creation can be costly. Projects that use existing digital data will develop faster than projects that must collect new types of data. Place-based data may not exist or may be at the wrong spatial scale for the analysis purposes of the project.

The C-BT, NCPN, LC, and PSD projects are information rich. They have access to and use publicly available data. Gener-ally, they are dependent on existing data of a quantitative nature. The C-BT uses existing data to create basemaps, but collects new data for water quality monitoring.

The WR, Nog, and MED projects are information poor in that their areas of study did not have much existing digital data. Also, the capture of cultural information for both the WR and

MED studies meant the creation of new data of a qualitative and sensitive nature.

ConclusionThis assessment revealed some interesting trends. Inclusion of other case studies and additional continuums will improve this assessment and provide an empirical basis for understanding PPGIS projects to date. Continuums or spectrums are used to represent the complexity of these studies and to identify where dichotomies exist. Do the technologically imposed structures that are part of PPGIS reassert the digital divide? Those projects representing marginal members of society (WR, Nog, and MED) were the projects most in need of place-based information, new data, and education. The projects with strong linkages to govern-ment (LC, PSD, NCPN, and C-BT) had information, access to education, and data. How can researchers facilitate successful PPGIS projects in order to close the digital divide and not rein-force existing inequities?

Other researchers could use this tool to evaluate their case studies. However, the continuums need to be calibrated in some fashion – possibly through adding more key words to the con-tinuums. Additionally, other continuums such as scale (coarse ® fine), data precision (precise ® vague), and networks (centralized ® decentralized) need to be identified that may better inform the state of the research and refine the evaluation. Types of methodol-ogy and levels of participation are other aspects of a PPGIS that this initial assessment does not include. However, to evaluate ac-cess this guide represents a starting point to addresses the salient issues of context, content, connections, and capabilities.

Table 4: Connectivity and Capabilities. Connectivity addresses the materiality of cyberspace in terms of the physical infrastructure and funded policies of government and partnerships. Capabilities identifies the level of education people have access to in order to conduct the PPGIS project.


PPGIS addresses complex and multifaceted problems. No consensus exists on the appropriateness of the set of indicators presented in this article. However, the assessment guide begins the process of reflection in PPGIS activities to address critical issues of access in the form of technology, data, and skills. Practitioners of PPGIS need to assess the state of the research to date to bet-ter inform future studies. Three fundamental questions must be addressed to understand outcomes of PPGIS: Who is informed? Who is empowered? Who benefits from the technology? These questions will assist in tracking the influence of technology to understand the embedded nature of inequities on the landscape and how technology facilitates them.

About the Author

Melinda Laituri is an Associate Professor at Colorado State University in the Forest Science Department. Her research interests include water resources management, risk, environ-mental equity, and geographic information systems.

Corresponding Address:Melinda LaituriDepartment of Earth ResourcesColorado State UniversityFt. Collins, CO [email protected]

Table 5: Content. The final part of the assessment addresses the data available and the characteristics. The data represent a location. The format, type, and quality of the data all reflect how a location is understood and negotiated in cyberspace.

Acknowledgements

This article is a result of discussions at the ESF-NSF Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001. Special acknowledgments to the Left Hand Group: Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Meg Merrick, Steve Carver, Bob Rugg, Mario Boffi, Christie Drew, Erik de Man, and Franco Vico. Thanks to those anonymous reviewers who provided insightful comments to make improvements on an earlier draft.


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IntroductionThe mission of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, is to provide new access to the resources of higher education for area communi-ties; to help increase an understanding of the metropolitan area of strategic value to citizens, faculty, students, elected officials, and civic leaders; to provide a neutral forum for the discussion of critical metropolitan policy issues; to create partnerships linking faculty, students, and community groups to meet community and scholarly objectives; and to sponsor public service research. The Community Geography Project of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies was created to serve all of these objectives. Its focus is citizen empowerment through citizen use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. It recognizes the strength of GIS as an analytical tool as well as the power of its output (the map) to communicate and delineate power relationships (Harley 1989, McHaffie 1995, Pickles 1995). Furthermore, by providing technical training at the grassroots level, rather than merely providing community groups with GIS products, it ac-knowledges the notion that improved public access to GIS tools and data can create opportunities for community empowerment through the input of community-collected data, community-generated analysis, and map design as well as the potential lack of accountability by the agents (public and private) who have been the primary decision-makers with regard to spatial data collection, production, and provision (Chrisman 1987, Onsrud 1995, Pickles 1995, Craig 1998, Harris and Weiner 1998, Sieber 2000, Weiner 2001).

The Community Geography Project: The ApproachThe unique graphic display of information and the analytical power that GIS technology can provide have the capability of enabling the user to ask new and better questions and to com-

Reflections on PPGIS: A View from the Trenches

Meg Merrick

Abstract: The Community Geography Project is a Ford Foundation-funded program that provides training in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and asset mapping methods to community-based nonprofit organizations in partnership with K-12 schools. The primary goal of the Project is to empower citizens, and it is hoped that the partnership between com-munity-based groups and schools will be able to sustain technical and analytical expertise at the grassroots level. Although an overview of the lessons we have learned regarding access to hardware, software, and data are provided, this article focuses on questions regarding GIS training as related to citizen empowerment and provides examples of the iterative training process that the Project has developed.

municate spatially derived data, as professionals in geography, planning, environmental science, business, and the military have known for some time. Our work has focused on the question of whether or not that power can be effectively understood and utilized by the nonprofessional user, young or old, to empower community members to promote grassroots agendas and to build community.

Our involvement with Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) began some years ago with requests to offer training to grass-roots organizations from community-based organizations that understood the value of GIS technology and asset mapping (a community-building method not necessarily linked to geography) (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993). None of these community-based organizations could afford to pay for professional services. Because of our mission to provide a neutral forum, to increase understanding of the metropolitan area of strategic value to citi-zens, and to focus on citizen empowerment, we were concerned at the outset about creating dependent community groups whose questions would inevitably be filtered through our lens. If we were to provide GIS and asset mapping training, we would also have to build the capacity within neighborhoods to enable com-munity groups to have the freedom to explore the questions they care about most.

We quickly became aware that building this capacity within many community-based organizations was problematic because of overworked staff and the fluidity of the adult volunteer workforce. If we were truly going to build the capacity to do GIS and asset mapping in, for, and by the community, the expertise would have to be able to be sustained by embedding it into a community-based infrastructure (Leitner et al. 2002). Our proposed remedy is to promote partnerships between community-based organizations and K-12 schools to explore community-based issues together. With the rapid increase in the use of GIS technology across the professional and geographic worlds, the simplification and de-creased cost of the technology, as well as an increased emphasis


on community-based education at the K-12 level, we made the assumption that GIS technology will be incorporated into the K-12 curriculum across the country in the not-so-distant future.

This approach has required us to focus on simple but powerful applications using readily available software that is either inexpensive or free, using datasets that are inexpensive or free, and using analytical tools and processes that are relatively easy to understand and by replicated by nonprofessional adults and young people. Citizen empowerment, we believe, requires transparency; therefore, “blackbox” processes, such as decision support software, are not used unless they can be created by the community partners.

Under the Ford Foundation funding, awarded in January 2001, we are providing training to six community-based organiza-tions in partnership with schools over a two-year period (three in Year 1 and three in Year 2). We are in the process of completing Year 1 under this template and are working with the following partners on a variety issues: Old Town History Project/Metropolitan Learning Center/

Lincoln High School. Old Town, in Portland’s downtown core was once the most ethnically and racially diverse area of the city. It currently houses the largest number of single-room occupancy residences in the region. This is an area that is surrounded by rapid gentrification. The project is focusing on collecting oral histories from current and former residents, historic census research including the creation of historic census geography, investigation into the City Archives and police records, the creation of historic address geography, and photographing and rectifying historic Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for GIS analysis. The project also includes the extensive use of hot-linking imagery and audio files (oral histories) to the Old Town GIS, with the understanding that all of the data will be geo-referenced, grounded in geography. Volunteers include members of the Chinese community, residents, historians, and young people. The GIS will be used for public outreach, historical analysis, and exhibit purposes.

Sherwood Institute for Sustainability/Sherwood Middle and High Schools. Sherwood has the distinction of being the fastest growing city in Oregon over the last 10 years (under 3000 in 1990 to approximately 12,000 in 2000). Training in database development and GIS technology is being provided primarily to middle school and high school students, and to faculty to work with adult mentors such as: the Sherwood Police Department and SALT (Seniors and Law Enforcement Team) (database development and crime mapping); the local parks ranger (park trail and invasive species mapping); the historical society (detailed graveyard mapping); and the Chamber of Commerce (business and member maps). All projects are being used to leverage additional funding for the projects.

The Wetlands Conservancy/CRUE Program, Open Meadow Alternative School. The Open Meadow School works primarily with students who have experienced limited success in traditional school environments, been expelled, or have

dropped out of school altogether. GIS and database training is being given to students and faculty in a pilot project to monitor plant and animal life as well as water quality in three of the region’s wetlands (one urban and two rural). This will feed into a larger statewide wetlands database project of the Conservancy.

Lessons Learned The Community Geography Project is fundamentally a service project. However, an assessment component was instituted with the Ford Foundation grant primarily as a way for us to learn from and respond to the experiences of our community partners. Assess-ment consists of periodic interviews with the participants: com-munity-based organizations, school participants, and Portland State University faculty and students involved in the work.

The Project has encountered many of the issues regarding access to hardware, software, and data that have been well docu-mented elsewhere. Access to information also requires understand-ing or cognitive access. The issue of cognitive access has become central to developing solutions to the digital divide (Castells 1999, Resnick et al. 1999, Tardieu 1999). Presumably, the use of GIS technology increases cognitive access to information and is therefore empowering; however, this is dependent on the nature of the training available at the grassroots level.

Access To Hardware, Software, and DataHardware and Software. Although we might like to think that hardware access is less a barrier than it used to be, our experience in the community-based nonprofit and K-12 communities indi-cates that adequate hardware remains a problem. ArcView 3.2, the software we are using because ESRI makes it readily available to schools and because ESRI’s GIS products are the most widely used, runs in a PC environment (many K-12 schools are primarily Macintosh environments) and requires more horsepower than is available. The computer labs in the schools that we have worked in have minimal support, are often overbooked, and are poorly laid out for the highly interactive teaching approach that we have developed. Given decreasing school budgets and limited funding available to community-based groups, this situation does not appear to be improving as rapidly as might have been assumed given the decreasing cost of computing power. New versions of GIS software, as is the trend across software applications, requires exponentially greater horsepower just to run. Our partners are dependent, at this point, on ESRI’s continued support of the ArcView 3 product line. Community-based groups and K-12 schools may have to explore other options.

The Internet. All of our partners have Internet access, al-though in some cases it is slow.

Data. Although the state of Oregon provides some free spatial data online and there are numerous free or low-cost sources of data online, the most detailed and best quality spatial data available for the Portland metropolitan area are distributed


by our regional government (Metro) and is not free. One of the reasons for encouraging partnerships between community-based organizations and K-12 schools is that Metro’s Regional Land Information System (RLIS) Lite product is available at a much lower cost to schools (one time only) than to non-profit organizations. Up-to-date data may not be critically important for grassroots purposes, since most of the applications that our partners have been engaged in involve linking new data to the base spatial layers. However, as we collect as much free data as we can to provide to our partners, we have become concerned about the increasing commercialization of data and what that could mean at the grassroots level.

Access to data implies the sharing of data, and the sharing of data is only valuable if the quality of data can be assured. As previously stated, much of the work that our partners are focus-ing on is adding new data (data collected at the grassroots level) to pre-existing base layers. One advantage of focusing on local issues is that the students readily understand the importance of scrutinizing data and the importance of metadata. In many cases, community members are well equipped to “ground truth” the data about their communities that they obtain from others. We have been fortunate to have an excellent model for metadata standards in the Data Dictionary provided with Metro’s RLIS Lite dataset. We use it as a teaching tool, a resource, and as a model.

Internet Map Server Applications. When it comes to grass-roots GIS, Internet Map Server (IMS) applications, as many of them currently exist, are problematic. We use them, especially those that focus on local geography (Metro’s MetroMap, the City of Portland’s CGIS, and the Portland Police Bureau’s CrimeMap-per) to introduce partners to possible applications and as sources for maps and data. However, these IMS applications are in no way “participatory” or transparent. The content that is served, the way that it is displayed, and the analytical capability of these IMS applications are highly controlled and difficult to use; they are clumsy, difficult to read, and they are exceedingly slow when using a slow Internet connection. The output is difficult to control and is less than optimal. Our experience indicates that after our partners have begun to work in ArcView, they see these applica-tions as manipulative and frustrating because they have begun to see what a GIS that they can control can do.

There is the argument that most people do not want to have to learn GIS, do not want something complicated, do not want to have to work too hard to get the information they seek, and want to get the information in the privacy of their homes or offices. This is a valid argument for providing simple information that can be enhanced with a mapping interface, but it is not an argument that supports participatory GIS. Participation requires at least a cursory understanding of the importance of spatial concepts, spatial implications, and spatial data – an understanding of the language of geography. The IMS cannot fulfill this promise until the users of these sites have such an understanding.

Cognitive Access. Access to hardware, software, and data does not guarantee access to knowledge. Knowledge implies in-formation with understanding. Being able to access data, even

data displayed as maps, does not mean that the user can interpret the data. Maps are a kind of language that need interpretation or must be taught. As with access to hardware, software, and data, the cost of training in monetary terms and in time is related to quality and can be a substantial barrier. Addressing the issue of cognitive access is also considerably more complicated than purchasing products.

The Question of TrainingKnowing that the Ford Foundation funding would ensure our partners’ access to software and the RLIS Lite dataset and that our partners would have some in-house computing capability (access to hardware, software, and data), we have been able to dedicate most of our efforts to the cognitive side of access. Our funding has allowed us to provide weekly training sessions to all of our partners over 12 months.

The use of GIS technology can be seen as an iterative process that helps users to ask better questions. But to be able to use it in this way requires an ability to use the tools of a PC (particularly its filing system) and a basic understanding of spatial concepts, databases, spatial overlay analyses, and cartographic design. Without an understanding of spatial concepts, such as distance, proximity, and scale, users may not be able to recognize the im-portance of patterns that emerge through analysis and mapping. Databases are the core of a GIS. Understanding the importance of the database (its structure, requirements, and limitations) is necessary so as to be able to add and edit databases, perform analyses, and create structures for data acquisition. The ability to do spatial overlay analyses is what distinguishes GIS from other information systems. Understanding how and when various types of overlay analyses should be employed is central to the effective use of a GIS. Cartography is the graphic language of geography and the primary graphic output of a GIS. A fundamental under-standing of basic cartographic principles such as the importance of projection, symbolization, classification, hierarchy, and color is necessary in order to be able to effectively communicate geo-graphic information to others. And, of course, users must be able to operate the software.

GIS professionals spend years acquiring their expertise at universities, workshops, and on-the-job training. On the opposite end of the spectrum, what essentially amounts to software training is promoted by software vendors and consultants for professional users who want to update their skills and novices who want an introduction to GIS in tutorials, one-day to week-long work-shops, or online courses employing generic datasets and canned exercises guaranteed to work. In these settings, students are not able to experiment with their own project ideas, to think through a process that has not been tested, to be allowed to “fail” and try again, or to take the time to become comfortable with the way the product works let alone learn how to approach geographic questions. Community college programs and technical certifi-cate programs lie somewhere in between these two approaches, with greater emphasis on the technical than the theoretical (job training).


We have found canned tutorial and online options to be unsatisfactory in our community-based work because partners are interested in focusing on issues of concern to them, in other words local data, not just how to use the software. In our experience, middle school students, high schools students, and uninitiated adults can learn to use GIS technology effectively. However, GIS is best learned doing “real” projects in local neighborhoods and around issues that matter to them. And some level of success is necessary early on. There is very little patience for wading through artificial scenarios about unfamiliar places. In other words, inter-est in an issue is an important factor in driving learners through the learning curve. This is especially important at the grassroots level because in this context the goal is not job training but is-sue-oriented discovery.

Our partners can be categorized into two primary groups of users: adults and young people (middle school and high school aged students). In general, the middle and high school students have a much higher comfort level with computing technology than the adults. It can be safely said that most of the young people that we work with are fearless around computers; we have to run to keep up with them. The adults tend to be less enamored of the technology and more interested in the questions. With both young people and adults, our training has become highly interac-tive where the learners become teachers (young people teach other young people and adults) and teachers become learners (com-munity members teach us, the teachers, about their communities – impacting of the direction of training sessions). Students of all ages are taught to question: the data, the choice of analysis, the analysis itself, the output, and how well and how accurately the output communicates its message. In this way, GIS is beginning to be understood by many of our partners as a vehicle for expres-sion and a catalyst for change.

Conversations Using Maps and Data: Some Examples

Example 1From the first day of training we invite our partners to begin to interpret maps about their communities. Figure 1 is race data from the American Community Survey for Multnomah County, Oregon (1996). The map on the left indicates the percentage of blacks by census tracts; the map on the right is the percentage of Asians by census tracts. In 1996, there were several census tracts with a black population of greater than 50%; in one census tract the black population was 67% – in a metropolitan area that was less than 7% black. Although the concentration of Asians is much less in any one tract, the Asian map indicates a pattern that is the flipside of the percent black population. There are many stories embedded in these simple maps, some of them uncomfortable. We invite our partners to tell us what the maps say to them, to develop questions, and to explore how they might investigate these questions further with and without GIS.

Figure 1. Percent Black and Asian Populations by Census Tract in Multnomah County. Source: American Community Survey, 1996

Figure 2. Draft: Old Town History Project Historic and Cultural Resources Map, 2002.


Figure 3. Historic vice mapped to the Sanborn Fire Insurance map by students of Lincoln High School for the Old Town History Project, 2002.

Map from the Report of the Portland Vice Commission, 1913.

Vice Commission points rectified to the street file in ArcView.

Example 2The adult volunteers in the Old Town History Project are collect-ing information about cultural institutions and historic resources in the Old Town neighborhood. They are designing a map (Figure 2) that they hope to make available at their storefront site, neigh-borhood businesses, and the Classical Chinese Garden. However, the map has developed into a potentially politically contentious document. Because of increasing gentrification and a proposed code amendment that is in the works and that could threaten protection for historic resources, the volunteers with the Old Town History Project have decided to identify both designated historic resources as well as the boundaries of the Chinatown and Skid-more historic districts on this map. A second map, to be printed on the back of the first map, has been developed to include some of Old Town’s businesses. Identifying which businesses to include is an area being debated. It is interesting to note that a decision was made to include the neighborhood’s many soup kitchens in

the restaurant category. This document has become a statement for inclusion that is very different from the typical tourist map. The geographic extent of the map goes beyond the neighborhood boundary established by the City into an area contested by the adjacent neighborhood association. The process of data collection and map design has brought many issues to the surface for open discussion. This very simple application, very do-able for these volunteers, has forced them to focus on the mission and goals of the Old Town History Project and think about the neighbor-hood in new ways.

Example 3In early part of the 20th century, Old Town was the most ethni-cally and racially diverse neighborhood in Portland. It has been known at various times as “Chinatown” and “Japantown” and included significant communities of Greeks, Jews, and African


Americans. Additionally, it has had a long history of vice. With the discovery of the Report of the Portland Vice Commission of 1913 at the City Archives that included a map of geo-referenced “moral” and “immoral” establishments (minus the streets for confidential-ity), some Lincoln High School students became very intrigued by the challenge of using GIS to map historic vice. Because we are only allowing our students to use software that is readily available to them (in other words, not ArcInfo), this has been a challenge. To tackle this question, we had to create a new street file with the old address ranges and add digitized images of some Sanborn Fire Insurance maps (Figure 3). Without going into detail, the tasks were relatively labor intensive and complex. However, we wanted to be sure not to lose sight of the opportunity that these points, once mapped, could offer us to delve deeper. What is the clas-sification system all about? What do these locations really mean? How were they identified? How do they compare with the actual police records? Who were the property owners of the identified sites? Based on the police records and census data, who were the people involved in vice in this neighborhood in 1913? What does the activity and census data (which is no longer confidential) tell you about the place and how it functioned? Is there any way to reconstruct their personal stories? How does this relate to Old Town today? What began with points without streets becomes an inquiry with tremendous depth.

This approach has taken time to develop. We expected a relatively high level of geographic thinking from our partners to enhance their use GIS technology, and they have indicated to us that they have found this approach rewarding. Whether or not they will be able to carry on without us, a very important goal for us, is a real question. In large part, our community partners’ independence will depend on an adoption of a community-based, multi-disciplinary GIS curriculum by K-12 districts that will con-tinue to train students (who could also train adult partners), and the nature and quality of teacher training and support. We will be able to provide some minimal support for our Year 1 partners, and we are working on developing a curriculum for K-12 teachers.

Concluding Thoughts: Influencing PowerAsset mapping is a community-building strategy developed by John Kretzmann and John McKnight in An Assets Approach to Building Community: Mobilizing and Building Communities from the Bottom Up (1993), in which community members de-fine what an asset is, identify the community’s assets (individuals’ skills and talents, community-based associations, institutions, as well as economic, environmental, and architectural assets), and develop schematics or “maps” indicating possible connections that exist and/or could be developed among the assets. Since the publication of this book and a series of additional workbooks and workshops, asset mapping has become wildly popular with com-munity-based organizations and with consultants as evidenced with any Internet search on “asset mapping.” This is a method that we have been asked by community groups to include in our training program. The use of GIS technology is a logical enhance-

ment. John Kretzmann, at a workshop held in Vancouver, WA, in the Fall of 2000, stated that he was concerned that community groups had become so focused on the “mapping” step of the as-set mapping process that somehow the “mobilization” piece was getting lost. In support of Kretzmann’s own method, it could be argued that the processes of asset definition and identification are themselves a kind of mobilization. We, at the Community Geography Project, share this concern about our work in the community. The focus could end up being on the technology and driven by technology rather than the questions. This is why the process, learning how to train with the goal of empower-ment front and center, has become so important to the work we do. By emphasizing critical thinking every step of the way, the questioning of data, the analysis, the output, and to understand that the tool is best suited to an interactive process with the data and a conversation with the map, we hope that GIS can empower community members to ask new and better questions and to seek innovative solutions to problems.

As the technology that drives GIS evolves and as we begin to develop a geographically literate society through our K-12 educa-tion system, it is hoped that the focus on the tool will become less of a necessity. As the computing processes become more and more embedded and “blackbox” in nature, there is a danger that, with-out an understanding of geographic inquiry and geo-spatial data (and the processes that the data are likely to undergo), uneducated users could become manipulated and therefore less empowered. This is why geographic literacy is so important.

I recently spoke to a GIS professional who suggested that there was no good reason to bring GIS into the K-12 environ-ment and that community-collected data could not be used by professionals due to the lack of quality control. I am sympathetic to these concerns about data quality but not about GIS in the K-12 classroom or in the community. Our experience with young people, in particular, has shown that this generation can learn the technology relatively easily, that they are excited about seeing their community in new ways, and that, if used in the right way, it can be a vehicle for becoming involved in policy-related issues. At a time when fewer and fewer young people are voting, this is a very exciting development. Our experience with most GIS professionals has been incredibly supportive. But for the profes-sional skeptics out there, the bottom-line is that GIS will be in K-12 systems if for no other reason than that ESRI is making it irresistible. How it is incorporated into the classroom and the community will determine whether or not geographic literacy, civic engagement, and grassroots empowerment can be achieved. One can only imagine what a nation of geographically literate citizens will demand in terms of data collection, data quality, ac-cess to data, political dialogue, and political outcomes.


About the Author

Meg Merrick holds an MS degree in geography and is a doctoral student in urban studies at the College of Urban and Public Affairs, Portland State University. Merrick’s research inter-ests are in grassroots uses of GIS and spatial literacy. She is the director of the Community Geography Project of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies at Portland State. Merrick served as the chair of URISA’s 2nd Annual PPGIS Conference at Portland State University in July, 2003.

Corresponding Address:Meg MerrickCoordinator of the Community Geography ProjectInstitute of Portland Metropolitan StudiesCollege of Urban & Public AffairsPortland State University

Acknowledgement


References

Castells, M., 1999, The Informational City is a Dual City: Can it Be Reversed? In Schon, D., B.S. Bish, and W.J. Mitchell (Eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press), 27-41.

Chrisman, N., 1987, Design of Geographic Information Systems Based on Social and Cultural Goals. Photogrammetric Engi-neering and Remote Sensing, 53(10), 1367-1370.

Craig, W. and S. Elwood, 1998, How and Why Community Groups Use Maps and Geographic Information. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 25(2), 95-104.

Harley, J.B., 1989, Deconstructing the Map. Cartographica, 26(2), 1-20.

Harris, T. and D. Weiner, 1998, Empowerment, Marginaliza-tion, and Community-Integrated GIS. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 25(2), 67-76.

Kretzmann, J.P. and J.L. McKnight, 1993, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (Chicago: ACTA Publications).

Leitner, H., R.B. McMaster, S. Elwood, S. McMaster, and E. Sheppard, 2002, Models for Making GIS Available to Com-munity Organizations: Dimensions of Difference And Ap-propriateness, in Craig, W., T. Harris and D. Weiner (Eds.), Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems (London: Taylor and Francis), 37-52.

McHaffie, P.H., 1995, Manufacturing Metaphors: Public Car-tography, the Market, and Democracy. In Pickles, J. (Ed.), Ground Truth (New York: Guilford Press). 113-129.

Onsrud, H., 1995, The Role of Law in Impeding and Facilitat-ing the Sharing of Geographic Information. In Onsrud, H. and G. Rushton (Eds.), Sharing Geographic Information (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research), 292-306

Pickles, J., 1995, Representations in an Electronic Age. In Pickles, J. (Ed.), Ground Truth (New York: Guilford Press).

Resnick, M., N. Rusk and S. Cooke, 1999, The Computer Club-house: Technical Fluency in the Inner City. In Schon, D., B.S. Bish and W.J. Mitchell (Eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press), 265-285.

Sieber, R., 2000, Conforming (to) the Opposition: The Social Construction of Geographical Information Systems in Social Movements. International Journal of Geographical Informa-tion Science, 13(8), 775-793.

Tardieu, B., 1999, Computer as Community Memory: How People in Very Poor Neighborhoods Made a Computer Their Own. In Schon, D., B.S. Bish, and W.J. Mitchell (Eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press), 289-313.

Weiner, D., T. Harris, and W. Craig, 2001, Community Partici-pation and Geographic Information Systems. Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Ap-proaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001.

URISA Journal • Roche 41

URISA Journal • Roche 41

IntroductionThe ability to analyse problems in a relevant way was discussed in four position papers presented at the European Science Foundation/National Science Foundation (ESF/NSF) Work-shop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches Using Geographic Information that took place in Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001 (Carver 2001, Craglia and Masser 2001, Niles and Hanson 2001, Weiner et al. 2001). On the one hand is access to Geographic Information (GI) (especially by citizens), and on the other hand is potential stimulation of public participation using GI (and possibly associated Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)). This ability seems to be strongly related to the level of knowledge of social, spatial, politi-cal, and cultural features from the local to the national scale.

Keeping this in mind, we intend to shed new light on the situation in France regarding access and use of GI by citizens. First, the French context is analysed by focusing on political and institutional aspects that have a direct impact on the use of GI for public participation in land planning. Second, the main institutional responses given by research and academic councils are presented to better understand the state of the art in France on these topics and its recent evolution. Finally, some key points are proposed to link societal evolution and GI in a way that could stimulate and facilitate participation through the use of GI.

The French Context Regarding Participation Using GIThe French Spatial Organisation: Complexity and Redundancy Since the Territorial Decentralization Law in1982, decision making at the local level has undergone profound changes. The responsibilities of the French National State, known for its

Geographic Information and Public Participation: Research Proposal from a French Perspective

Stéphane Roche

Abstract: This article intends to show how the latest evolution of public policies by the French government shapes a new context for land-planning activities in France, oriented toward more cooperation between different levels of government and more public participation using Geographic Information. The development of formal participatory approaches, especially at the local level, is not a process that is grounded in the French planning culture, and very little research has been done on this topic in France. We developed some research questions on Geographic Information and participation issues based on recent calls for tender launched by the main French funding organisations (Ministries and the National French Research Council).

centralization of power, have been decentralised into four levels of territorial administration (Grubert 1992): 1) commune (mu-nicipality); 2) municipal groupings such as the “Communauté de communes” and the “Syndicats” or “districts intercommu-naux;” 3) “Département” (the county); and 4) “Région.” Each has statutory responsibilities and tax-raising powers, and each is accountable to regulatory bodies such as the regional audit office (Roche and Humeau 1999).

A result of this law is that the French spatial organisation is characterised by the overlapping of local administrations; governments share the responsibility and power of management and planning in a very complex way. In some instances, levels of power are shared at the same scale regarding different issues (e.g., “communes” and “communautés de communes” sharing competencies concerning various issues of municipal planning), and in other instances, levels of power are shared at different scales for only one issue (e.g., competencies about public transportation are assumed both by “communautés d’agglomération,” town, and “département”).

Other interesting aspects of the French spatial organisation are the high number of local and regional governments and especially of “communes” (about 36,000). Since these 36,000 French municipalities have become too small due to the increase in mobility of urban and rural populations (residential, professional, social, cultural ...) (Beteille 1995), it has been necessary for inter-municipal cooperation to increase. For instance, the Law on Ter-ritorial Planning (1992) recommends and financially encourages modern inter-municipal structures such as the “Communautés de communes” and “Pays” (Roche and Humeau 1999).

For local communities and citizens, spatial organisation is of-ten perceived as complex and redundant. The increasing number of elections for local and regional representatives contributes to a decrease in the level of interest and participation by the citizens. Paradoxically, at the same time, citizens ask for more elected rep-resentatives to justify their decisions and produce relevant argu-

42 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Roche 43

ments. Carver (2001) discussed this in a general way in a position paper. Actually, at the local level, citizens and local councillors are drifting apart because of this complexity. Moreover, most decisions that have a direct impact on the citizens’ everyday life (for instance, those related to environment, urban planning, and school transportation) are made by inter-municipal organisations instead of by local councillors, even though citizens still consider the councillors to be responsible for these issues. This complex situation, increased by embedded localisation and globalisation processes, limits the ability of citizens to identify themselves with the places where they live and their inclination to participate.

To some political decision makers, geo-information technol-ogy (GIT) appears as a solution to the increased expectations from the population. GIT integrates the logic of various stakeholders’ (each one according to their duties) as the instrument enabling greater influence by the decision-making process and giving more “formal” arguments to justify decisions. This is particularly the case for local authorities, but also for some planners at a strategic level who are charged with showing, explaining, and defending municipal projects to citizens (Roche 1999). Roche and Humeau (1999) demonstrated the extent to which the specific French spatial organisation affects the diffusion and use of GI at the local level. Based on several local case studies, they argued that a common language (i.e., a negotiated spatial and conceptual framework) between experts, elected representatives, and even citizens is necessary to enable Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to foster inter-municipal cooperation. In a different way, Miellet (1996) noted that these French particularities (especially multiple levels of power in planning and decentralisation acts) have been of huge importance in the French GIS diffusion process (spatially as well as socially speaking).

Evolution in Laws Regarding Planning and Local Governance First, it is important to mention that the developing of formal participatory approaches, especially at the local level, is not typically grounded into the French planning culture. French citizens or local communities participate essentially when they are concerned about a specific project. Actually, participation is often reduced to militancy or opposition (“not in my back yard,” grassroots membership, etc.). Nevertheless, since the end of the 1990s, the French context regarding land planning and local governance has been deeply modified, and these modifications will probably have some huge consequences, not only in public participation to local planning, but also in public access to public sector information (and especially GI) and the role of ICTs in participatory approaches developed locally. Three new laws will have a direct impact on these processes.

In 1999, a law on inter-municipal cooperation (called “Chevènement” from the name of a recent Minister of the Inte-rior) was enacted that established new rules regarding the process and conditions to create “communautés de communes” and has provided the latter with extended competencies in local manage-

ment and planning to the detriment of communes (especially relating to economical development and taxes collected from private firms – “taxes professionnelles”). Particularly relating to huge urban areas, a new form of municipal gatherings have been created, called “communautés d’agglomération,” which are to re-place “districts urbains.” Also, decision-making centres regarding planning now make up these new inter-municipal organisations. The problem is that the local governments are too far from the citizens, and the representative process into the inter-municipal council is not clear enough to be understood by the citizens. There are no direct elections, and each commune is represented by a number of elected councillors determined partly according to the number of inhabitants. There are some specific and com-plex regulation mechanisms so as to avoid too great of inequality between the bigger municipalities and the smaller ones.

In 1999, the “Loi d’Orientation sur l’Aménagement et le Développement Durable du Territoire” (LOADDT), called Voynet (from the name of the last French minister for Envi-ronment and Planning), was enacted to find solutions to this problem. This law has created “contrats de villes” and “contrats d’agglomérations,” some new forms of state financial incentives designed to help rural and urban municipalities that want to develop extensive public consultation and public participation processes for specific development and planning projects.

The “Loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain” (SRU), which was enacted in 2000, has gone even further. This law ex-tensively modifies processes and forms of urban and rural plan-ning, creating the “Schéma de Cohérence Territorial” (SCOT) and the “Plan Local d’Urbanisme” (PLU), which are new tools by which to make local governments (communes, “communautés de communes,” and “communautés d’agglomération”) formal-ize global and coherent planning projects at the inter-municipal level. However, two areas of this law are quite relevant from the point of view of public participation using GI. The first point is that SRU, to develop the different steps of SCOT and PLU development, requires local governments to find and investigate public consultation and public participation solutions adapted to local features. Contrary to the Voynet law, SCOT and PLU are mandatory. Therefore, in the next few years, we can assume that many initiatives in public participation will be developed in France, and it is probably the right time to begin research projects on this issue. The second point concerns the role of GI. The mechanism imposed by the SRU to create and frequently update SCOT and PLU implicitly forces local governments to mobilize and use more geo-referenced information relating to various topics (spatial, social, technical, economical, etc.). It does not seem to be compatible with paper data and needs specific geographical data. So indirectly, the SRU will probably increase the use of digital GI and force local governments to improve their ability to manage and make the most of ICT and especially of GIT (Roche and Hodel 2001).


Participation Using GI?Even if GI is not always explicitly mentioned in this new partici-patory framework, it is quite clear that certain legal obligations regarding local and regional planning policies cannot be achieved by local governments without the expertise of management and the use of digital geo-information. This reveals the paradox of the French situation: The most recent legislative evolution described above put GI rather explicitly at the heart of new methods of management and land-planning systems. This can be illustrated, for instance, by the amendment1 to the Voynet law proposed by Deputy Caillaud or even by the national project to develop a Wide Scale Referential (Référentiel Grande Echelle). These evo-lutions emphasized the major role that GI as well as associated technologies can play within the functioning of these new land-planning systems. Indeed, the potential contributions of GI to the understanding of the functioning of territories and to increasing the knowledge of the citizens are often underlined.

GIT constitutes a specific variation of ICT, just as it leans on their network infrastructure (Internet, Intranet, etc.). However, GIT typically fills two types of use that cover the entire field of urban management (town planning, network and infrastructure management, land management, transport, environment, etc.): 1) to acquire, structure, manage, and update geographic data, and 2) to analyse, formalize, and spread (in graphic or cartographic form), which is to say to generate and share representation. This is precisely the reason that GI and GIT are so pivotal. GIT generates and conveys space representation; it is, in a way, the expression of the relationship between a society (of which they are the product) and its territory (of which they have to be the reflection), while having the ability to modify these relationships. Therefore, the choices made by local governments in this field are of major consequence, and the stakes are quite high. The ability of local governments to integrate and master these technologies (especially the data they could process) and their capacity to meet social requirements in this field are decisive with regard to the ter-ritories involved. Conversely, the non-mastery or the impossibility to have access to these tools, questionable choices, or abortive thoughts can lead to marginalization of the local actors (Roche 2000). The dialectic is similar at the level of the individual and the social group.

In actual practice, however, national decision-makers struggle to make use of the necessary means to face these new obligations. There is a discrepancy between what is said regarding the use-fulness of GI and GIT at the highest level of national decision-makers versus what is actually done by the various ministries and administrations to ensure the diffusion and use of GI and GIT down to the local level.

The pattern described by Argyris and Schôn explains this situation. They define a difference between the theory espoused (what we profess about our way to act regarding technology) and the theory in use (what our real actions and methods on the field reveal about our way to act and our representation). Argyris and Schôn (1978, 1995) showed that there is often a contradic-tion between the two theories. This decoupling between the two

levels (theory espoused and theory in use) limits the potentially positive effects of technology. Indeed, while it is important to assess the overall social efficiency of a technology, it is less the actors’ commitment in principle to it than the ordinary use of technology in the field.

In reality, GI is still not considered a major stake in planning activities by the French State, even by the most involved ministries, although GI stands out at the local level as providing an answer to the stakes induced by the public policies. For instance, France must face recurrent crucial problems of dissemination and public access to GI (Sureau 2001), particularly related to data pricing and data sharing as mentioned in the Lengagne Report (2000) or in different report studies from the Centre Nationalde l’Information Géographique (CNIG) (http://www.cnig.fr). The problems of pricing and dissemination constitute a real slow down in the use of GI by citizens (and even by local authorities of the smallest communities). Actually, these problems affect not only GI, but also every type of public sector information (e.g., census data provided by the Institute National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE)). Other political questions regarding the use of GI are linked to the overlapping of various levels of decision making. This situation gives rise to disagreements in such areas as power conflicts and competency conflicts.

It is quite clear that this situation must be studied more closely, especially concerning the impact of legal and institu-tional evolutions on the increase in various forms of participa-tory approaches inside the local governments. In the middle and long term, it will be interesting to analyse the social and spatial consequences of consultation and public participation in local planning in France. However, in the short term, there must be a better understanding of the new needs of local governments (and also citizens) regarding the access and use of GI. This is probably why the main French research funding organisations recently developed specific new programs.

Responses from Research Funding OrganisationsICTs, Information, Space, and Society: The Latest Research Programs Because of the societal evolutions mentioned above (especially those related to spatial organisational, environmental, and plan-ning issues and information society issues), the major French research funding organisations have developed a new program specifically to encourage research focusing on the study of the relationship between information and society. Three of these programs are presented below because of their strong links with problems at stake regarding access to GI and public participa-tion.

First, a call for tenders “ACI-Ville” (Action Concertée Incitative) in the Spring of 2001 from the French Ministry of Research and Technologies asked questions about the effects of diffusion, implementation, and appropriation of ICTs to social

http://www.cnig.fr


and spatial features of urban areas (http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/aci/villeb.htm). This program is organised around four main axes. Three of these axes are related to the issue discussed in this article: The societal implications of ICTs, in particular the way in

which differing abilities to access and use information among local communities could produce social segregation and/or spatial differentiation. For example, research is encouraged to get a better understanding of why some people access information and integrate it into their everyday life and why others do not.

Technical networks and their implications on town management, planning, and services offered to citizens by urban local government.

The problems at stake with the concept of citizenship and its evolution according to public policy modifications and the new functioning of the civil society. Critical analyses of new forms of urban governance and local democracy have been primarily supported.

Even though there is nothing explicit in the program about GI and associated technologies, it is quite clear that most of the problems at stake mentioned in the call for proposals could be applied to geo-information and, more precisely, to public partici-pation using GI. Generally speaking, this call strongly encourages research proposals based on interdisciplinary teams aiming at developing international and cross-cultural comparative research or critical analyses of foreign experiences, and at comparing it to the French context. The call for tenders assumes a general lack of interest for this question by the French research communities compared with other European or North American countries.

Second, another call for tenders was made in the Fall of 2001 by the French Research Council (http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/fr/prog/index.html) and more precisely by the new research di-rectorate, which was created in 2000, entitled STIC (Sciences et Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication). This call for tenders is named “Programme Interdisciplinaire: Société de l’Information” (STIC-SHS). The program seeks to anticipate the usual steps of the actual technological revolution – techno-logical rupture, technical innovation, new economic organiza-tion, evolution of the practices and use, and social and political reconfigurations – by including researchers from the human and social sciences (SHS) and ICTs (STIC) from the very beginning in the phases of technical innovation in order to bring people into the loop of technological innovation. This will help create the bases for durable interdisciplinary research, allowing a certain form of control on these evolutions. This program consists of three research axes: The first is dedicated to the problems at stake regarding

knowledge and multimedia content management, especially when it is a question of working on data warehouse and data mining.

The second is the largest and focuses on interaction between people and information systems. This area emphasises the

social interactionism paradigm (Campbell 1999). The third encourages research aimed at building an

information economy and society. One of the five identified issues of the second axis is entitled “Geographic Information.” Next, proposals focusing on data quality, simulation and modelling, spatial analyses, and research proposals studying social interactions between human and geo-information are supported.

Third, in November of 2001, the French Ministry of Envi-ronment and Land Planning launched a call for proposals entitled “Concertation, Decision et Environnement (CDE): Quelles Places et quels Impacts pour les NTIC?” (http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/actua/proposit/2001/concertation-decision-envir-ntic.htm). This program shows interest in various questions such as: How do ICTs impact the role and relationship between stakeholders? To what extent could public concerns and reactions be better taken into account using ICTs? To what extent could ICTs modify ac-cess to information by citizens and local communities? How is information about environmental issues appropriated by citizens and local communities with ICTs as intermediary?

All of these programs are quite new in the context of French research. It is interesting that, even though geo-information is not directly at the heart of the program (except for CNRS), the main questions and issues are strongly linked with public access to information (and GI is a particular kind of information) by using ICTs (and GIT is a specific type of information technology) in order to improve public participation approaches.

Evolution of the French Research Network in GI Sciences – GDR SIGMAThe most specific geo-information research being done in France is led by some members of the French Research Network CASSINI/SIGMA. The new version of the CASSINI, called SIGMA (Geographic Information Systems, Methodologies and Applications), was begun in 2000 and is headed by Robert Laurini and Pierre Dumolard. It is attached to the new department of “Sciences and Technologies for Information and Communication” of the French National Research Council. SIGMA is a network of 17 computing labs, 22 labs in Geography, 3 additional labs, and 8 other public research organizations. The research initiatives of SIGMA are organized around five main themes: Theme 1: Management of Environment; Theme 2: Spatial Analysis; Theme 3: Quality; Theme 4: Interaction; and Theme 5: GI Systemsand Mobility (http://www.univ-lr.fr/cassini/).

Theme 4 includes questions about visualization, interaction, cooperative decision making, and participation GI systems; it also considers problems at stake relating to human, cognitive, and social aspects of decision making as important issues and intends to take this into account so as to be able to design and develop more relevant GI solutions to support public participation. This point is quite new compared with CASSINI, which was totally technically oriented. The other new point is the explicit reference

http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/aci/villeb.htm

http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/aci/villeb.htm

http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/fr/prog/index.html

http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/fr/prog/index.html

http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/actua/proposit/2001/concertation-decision-envir-ntic.htm

http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/actua/proposit/2001/concertation-decision-envir-ntic.htm

http://www.univ-lr.fr/cassini/


made to the concrete environmental and land-planning context. SIGMA tries to have closer links with real-world applications (e.g., urban planning approach created by SRU), which seems quite important for the relevance of research at this time, as mentioned by Carver (2001).

Only a few studies and research works have been produced in France on the GI (and GIT) diffusion and appropriation process during the last 10 years (e.g., Miellet 1996, Pornon 1997, Roche 2000). Most of these works essentially concern experts (technical and planning professionals or elected representatives) and none is really interested in the relationship between population and GI. It is definitely time to make progress on this issue…

Key Points To Link The Potential of Societal Evolution and GI This part of the article intends to underline research questions, according to the French situation, aiming at linking more relevant societal evolution and potential of GI in a “social interactionism” point of view. The text focuses on human and social issues regard-ing access to GI and the participatory approach, and avoids the technical issues. It deals more with “GI and Participation” than with “GIT and participation.”

GIT and the Participatory Approach: An Impossible Marriage? On the one hand, according to the low level of maturity of local communities and citizens regarding GI expertise and training (especially in France), and on the other hand, the complexity of even the simplest GIT (e.g., Web-based GIS), a marriage between GIT and public participation (that is, making GIT usable by non-professionals including citizens) seems to be unrealistic in the short term and probably in the middle term. Carver (2001) gave some very convincing evidence of this. Carver explained that the few examples of existing participatory approaches directly using GIT are prototypes, and most of the time they are carried out by scientists (e.g., Public Participation GIS from the United States). Typically, in France, even when local organisations are equipped with GIT, technology is not directly run to improve public participation.

With this in mind, and with the need to improve citizens’ awareness and give them access to GI and teach them to use it properly for public participation, we need to find solutions that are not only (and necessarily) technically oriented.

GI for (to Improve) Public Participation: The Process is the Result To allow oneself to spend a lot of time and effort to increase public participation, citizens or local communities must have the ability to integrate information (and especially GI in the case of planning issues) into their own way of thinking and behaviour. To reach this complex aim, in addition to access to information, there must

be access to the knowledge required to interpret the information and possibly (for, in my opinion, it is not necessary) to accede to tools to analyse and manipulate the data (either directly or medi-ated via facilitators), to finally have access to power (the ability to participate in GI). Citizens must also understand GI (which is probably the most difficult task) and be able to use it in the end. At this period of time, I am not sure that this long and complex process is realistic. My hypothesis is that a missing link exists in those who do not have enough expertise and training in GI; this knowledge can only be acquired through participation using GI. Actually, this problem is not specific to GI. Indeed, the question relating to citizens’ ability to have access and to understand infor-mation crops up regardless of the type and nature of information. However, since it has to do with the problem of land planning and management, the spatial dimension raises specific questions: on the one hand, questions linked to the difficulty to formalize and to represent information (which also goes back to the spatial cognition problem) and, on the other hand, questions linked to the citizens’ culture (the latter usually having no cartographic culture, and to have recourse to this type of representation raises specific problems).

Looking at research about GI and society, we can assume that GI is the result of a complex process of social construction characterized by various forms of involvement, adoption, and use (Harvey and Chrisman 1998, Roche 1999, Harvey 2000). Following Harley’s works, Crampton (2001) threw light on this social mechanism by focusing on maps. Talking about this issue, Crampton wrote that there is “an epistemic break between a model of cartography as a communication system, and one in which it is seen in a field of powers, between maps as presentation of stable, known information, and exploratory mapping environment in which knowledge is constructed.” To me, what seems very rel-evant for the issue of public participation using GI in this social construction paradigm is the idea that, actually, the process is the result. By itself, GI as a result (paper or digital maps, graphical models of simulation, etc.) is not important. However, the way in which people can interact (being their own GI producers) is very important. The more that citizens are involved in the construction process of GI (e.g., useful for a specific decision-making problem regarding planning), the more that they can participate in the de-cision making. On the French side, Lardon et al. (2001) recently explored the role of spatial representation (in the largest meaning, cognitive as well as physical) for land planning and development. These authors considered spatial representation (produced from GI) as intermediate objects that are used for the translation of phenomena in facts, of practices in acts, reasoning in actions, and for the mediation between stakeholders with divergent interests or levels of intervention a priori incompatibility. The problem of spatial representation emphasises the fact that even though GI has many points in common with public sector information, in general it reveals specific particularities.

Carver (2001) wrote in a position paper that “… different stakeholders may hold different world-views leading to focus on different aspects of the available information. This leads to


different perceptions and attitudes to the decision problem and clearly affects the ways in which different people participate in the decision-making process.” In the French context, research based on local case studies has already demonstrated the important role played by varying perceptions and cognitive representations (De-nis 1994, 1997, Pornon 1997, Roche 1999) to the way in which people accede to GI, use it, and finally agree (or not) to modify their own behaviour regarding planning activities.

This research confirms the emergence of a new paradigm: the human medium, which was mentioned by Roche (2000). Indeed, planning projects are deeply grounded in a complex process of relationships between people and space (in particular, through spatial perceptions). Citizens and local communities (as well as elected representatives) who do not use GI technologies directly can only mobilise it if it is transmitted and/or accompanied by the human medium. The latter presents and clarifies GI according to the specific local context features and constraints of the decision-making process. This human medium is actually the missing link in the process of social construction of GI; it is likely that this is what is needed to improve awareness by citizens and to allow them to participate by accessing, understanding, and using GI (Roche and Hodel 2001). With this assumption, the message is only the direct information, but also the human medium who presents the information. The human medium is a kind of GI animator and facilitator who knows about the specifics of the local context (social, spatial, human, institutional, etc.) as well as about GI issues. Furthermore, the human medium must be a mediator in order to translate interests and specific world views of each stakeholder in GI that are understandable by all (a refer-ence to Latour’s works, already exploited by such GI scientists as Harvey and Chrisman (1998)).

Toward a Research Proposal…Even though research has been carried out or is still in progress on Public Participation GI, especially regarding the French con-text, according to issues mentioned above, there is a real lack of knowledge about GI. Few studies take into account the social stakes noted at the beginning of this article: new prospects for inter-municipal cooperation and public participation or, more specifically, new planning of legal evolutions. In most cases, re-search focuses on the analysis of the organizational stakes and does not discuss the socio-spatial component of these phenomena. In this direction, even studies on the effects of Public Participation GIS do not really apprehend social differences in their spatial dimensions (Craig et al. 2002). The few French authors dealing with social construction of GI are often more interested in pro-fessional stakeholders (technicians, developers, elected officials) than in citizens or local communities, or in the human medium as a specific stakeholder. With some exceptions, research already carried out had been achieved in an Anglo-Saxon scientific, social, cultural, technological, etc., context (especially the United States). Therefore, a critical analysis and a review of the research in the French context is needed.

These facts raise essential problems. The first has to do with a lack of knowledge of the real contribution yielded by GIT to the dialogue between those involved in town planning and public participation. It goes back to the varying abilities of citizens to access the new media as well as to the information that the media are intended to supply them with. The second problem concerns the social and spatial consequences of these phenomena within local governments. The problems that emerge are those of social differentiation and of spatial rebuilding. The research project is centred on an analysis of public participation relating to town planning and the social appropriation forms of GIT. The ques-tion of the relationship between cause and effect regarding the differing abilities of appropriation of GIT and the level of citizens’ participation is raised. The effects of these phenomena on the forms and practices of urban democracy and governance, and of socio-spatial differentiations, are at the heart of the suggested reflection. Six specific research questions arise from this around which the projected reflection centres:QR1: What are the various forms of social appropriation

of geographic information (and possibly associated technologies) by citizens?

QR2: What are the determining factors of these forms of social appropriations (cognitive, social, geographical, cultural…)?

QR3: In what respect does the recourse to GIT modify the citizens’ perception, and more precisely, in what respect do they help citizens to better understand local problems regarding management and planning?

QR4: What are the forms of interaction and participation supported by GIT?

QR5: What are the real effects concerning the recourse to GIT to support the systems of public participation?

QR6: Could we characterize the human medium and formalize this role? What kind of new professional could this person be? What kind of specific training is needed to create such a specific geographic information professional?

Figure1: Research concepts


To improve these questions, it seems relevant to carry out comparative case studies (taking into consideration cultural, po-litical, social, and spatial dimensions involved in GI) from the local to the national scale. This case-study research should be based on a theoretical framework built around three fundamental concepts: Appropriation, Representation, and Participation.

Conclusion… To Continue…In this article, we show how the evolution of public policies on the French territories will shape a new context for land-planning activities that are oriented more toward cooperation between dif-ferent levels of local government and more public participation. This evolution has taken place at the same time as the increased use of ICTs; many local governments considered ICTs to be the relevant tools by which to achieve their new mandates and, par-ticularly, geographic information technologies.

Nevertheless, the potential role of GI and associated tech-nologies for public participation is not clear. There have been few studies or research in France reviewing this problem. To encourage research proposals dealing with GI and participatory approaches, the main institutional French Research Councils have developed calls for tenders. In this context, we developed a proposal aimed at better understanding the relationship between social appropriation (especially variables that influence this adop-tion) of GI by different categories of stakeholders and their levels of public participation. This proposal has been funded by the French Ministry of Research and Technologies (ACI-Ville) and CNRS (STIC-SHS). Our 2-year project was started in February 2002 and will be based on case studies (mainly in France) with comparison to the United Kingdom and North America.

About the Author

Stéphane Roche is currently Professor in the Department of Geomatic Sciences at Laval University (Quebec, Canada). From January 2002 to August 2003, Stephane Roche was a research fellow at the National French Research Council (CNRS). He was an associate-Professor in the Geography Department of the University of Angers (France) from Sep-tember 1998 to August 2003. He holds a degree in Engi-neering (1993) from the National School of Land Surveying and Mapping (ESGT/Paris, France), a Masters of Planning degree (1994) from the University of Angers (France), and a Ph.D. (1997) from the University of Angers. Roche’s research interests include GIS design and implementation, GI and society, participation and planning, cognition of geographic information.

Corresponding address:Département des Sciences GéomatiquesUniversité Laval, Pavillon CasaultG1K 7P4 Québec, QC, [email protected]

Acknowledgment


References

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Beteille, R. (Ed.), 1995, Le Rural Profond (Paris: SEDES).Campbell, H., 1999, Institutional Consequences of the Use of

GIS. In Longley, P.A., M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, and D.W. Rhind (Eds.), Geographical Information Systems (New-York: John Wiley and Sons), 2, 621-631.



Craig, W.J., T.M. Harris, and D. Weiner (Eds.), 2002, Com-munity Participation and Geographic Information Systems (London: Taylor and Francis).

Crampton, J.W., 2001, Maps as Social Constructions: Power, Communication and Visualization. Progress in Human Geography, 25(2), 235-252.

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Harvey, F. (Ed.), 2000, Social Construction of Geographical In-formation. International Journal of Geographic Information Sciences, Themed Issue, 14(8).

Harvey, F. and N. Chrisman, 1998, Boundary Objects and the Social Construction of GIS technology. Environment and Planning A, 30(9), 1683-1694.




48 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Smith, Craglia 49

Lardon, S., P. Maurel, and V. Piveteau (Eds.), 2001, Représen-tations Spatiales et Développement Territorial (Paris: Hermes).

Miellet, P., 1996, France: A Historical Perspective on GIS Diffu-sion. In Masser, I., H. Campbell, and M. Craglia (Eds.), GIS Diffusion, The Adoption and Use of GIS in Local Govern-ment in Europe (London: Taylor and Francis), 163-182.

Niles, S. and S. Hanson, 2001, A New Era of Accessibility: Or Is It? Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Partici-patory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001. http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Spoleto/NilesHanson.pdf

Pornon, H., 1997, Système d’Information Géographique, Pouvoir et Organisations: Géomatique et Stratégies d’Acteurs (Paris: L’Harmattan).

Roche, S., 1999, Enjeux de l’Appropriation Sociale des Technolo-gies de l’Information Géographique pour l’Aménagement Territorial: Etudes des Cas en France et au Québec (Caen: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion).

Roche, S., 2000, Les Enjeux Sociaux de Systèmes d’Information Géographique (Paris: L’Harmattan).

Roche, S. and J.-B., Humeau, 1999, GIS Development and Plan-ning Collaboration: A Few Examples from France. URISA Journal, 11(1), 5-14.

Roche, S. and T., Hodel, 2003, L’information géographique peut-elle améliorer l’efficacité des diagnostics de territoires? Revue Internationale de Géomatique, Hermès/Lavoisier (accepted in July 2003).

Sureau, K., 2001, Freins et Limites à l’Utilisation des SIG au Sein des Collectivités Territoriales. Master Thesis, Geography Department, University of Angers, France.

Weiner, D., T.M. Harris, and W.J. Craig, 2001, Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems. Work-shop on Access to Geographic Information and Participa-tory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001. http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Spoleto/WeinerEtAl.pdf

Footnotes

1 More simply, the article specifies that all land-planning develop-ments carried out by public or private organisations have the obligation to lean on cartographic documents geographically linked to the national geodesic referential (Lambert).

http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Spoleto/WeinerEtAl.pdf

http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Spoleto/WeinerEtAl.pdf


Introduction Throughout Europe, governments have been vigorously pursuing policies that develop electronic government to deliver services to citizens and business. Examples include the Information Society initiative at the European level (see Craglia and Masser 2002) and state-driven policies such as Information Age Government, in the case of the United Kingdom (UK). Much of this activity has assumed that the introduction of Internet technologies will naturally lead to increased efficiency in how government operates, both in terms of services such as the payment of local taxes and increased participation from citizens in government activity. It also exists in a context where political participation has been in decline in traditional avenues, such as voting at all levels of govern-ment, with a continuing interest in pressure group membership and “direct action”. As a result, in the UK, central government has been trying to modernise the ways in which local councils operate. This includes the direct election of mayors, cabinet-style structures for the ruling group in the council, and an increase in public participation, as exemplified by policies such as Best Value, which aims to continually improve and democratise government services. There is, however, a blind faith that new technology will provide a re-invigoration in democratic activity at all levels and particularly participation by younger citizens. Recent research by Smith (2001) questioned aspects of this policy area in terms of Internet-based public participation in UK local authorities, or “digital participation”. The research focussed on local authorities that had utilised methods such as electronic mail and websites to engage with their citizens. By using detailed case studies, they

were able to look behind the “digital ƒacades” that these methods presented to develop a deeper understanding of public partici-pation both in terms of local government officers and citizens. In particular, the assumption that there is a shared construct of “public participation” for all actors involved was questioned.

This article reports some of the findings of this research on public participation in the digital age and presents recommenda-tions that begin to explore the relationships between this emergent topic and interest in using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for access to geographic information (GI) and public participation. The remainder of this article is divided into two sections, with the first exploring digital participation as it relates to the UK context, and the second highlighting three issues for consideration that stem from this research. They include the rela-tionship between access to information and public participation; actors varying notions of access; and the need to look at both the meaning of public participation and the specific issues raised by the use of GI and related technologies in greater detail.

Digital Participation in the UKTo provide a benchmark in the rapidly evolving field of Inter-net-based participation, a survey was carried out in the spring of 1999 of over three quarters of all UK local authority websites (i.e., those that contained “gov.uk” in their Universal Resource Locators). This was partly based on a central government list and covered several services and local government functions. Particular attention was given to statutory land-use planning and environmental initiatives because they have a proven track

Digital Participation and Access to Geographic Information: A Case Study of Local Government in the

United Kingdom

Robin S. Smith and Massimo Craglia

ABSTRACT: Government policies across Europe and the United States are increasingly relying on Information and Commu-nication Technologies to help revive public participation. Such policies more often than not take a technological perspective and assume that if information and supporting technologies are provided, they will be used and will lead to “better decisions” and greater participation in the political process. Such assumptions are seductive, but are unfortunately largely untested. With this in mind, this article presents some findings from recent research into the nature of “digital participation” in local government within the United Kingdom. It reviews current practices and discusses general understandings of public participation that can impact the way in which information is utilised in terms of access and participatory approaches. The article clearly highlights that participation is not a shared construct among all individuals and organisations involved but is a complex process with several components. These include issues to do with the notions of participation, the object of participation, the audience targeted and methods deployed, and the expected outcomes. Failure to appreciate the Web of relationships among these facets and the way in which people adapt and reinvent technology and information to fit their needs is likely to undermine future initiatives leading to widespread disappointment. Given that the issues discussed in this article are generic in nature, they also apply to participatory approaches focusing on geographic information, which is the focus of this theme issue of the URISA Journal.


record of public participation as central to their processes. Owing to variations in the information and the methods of communica-tion they contained, the participatory nature of these websites was classified, with the subsequent selection of several leading authorities for initial investigation and then the analysis of three in-depth case studies in three different areas of policy application (local, mixed, and strategic).

The classification of the websites was built on Arnstein’s (1969) “ladder of citizen participation,” a model that outlines the variation in power relationships between citizens and their government. It presents a continuum ranging from lower “rungs” of participation where citizens are merely informed (“informa-tion”), to intermediate instances where the public is asked their opinion (“consultation”), and to the upper stages where they have full control on decisions made (“citizen control”). The compo-nents of this model have also been discussed in the context of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) by Carver (2002) and Weiner et al. (2001). In terms of the survey, websites were seen as weak and non-participatory if they provided little relevant information or no contact details, reflecting the lower rungs of the model. In contrast, they were classified as more participatory when en-tire policy documents and different methods of response were promoted or where there seemed to be novel ways for citizens to contribute in open forums (such as “graffiti walls”, message boards, and chatrooms).

From the 300 or so websites surveyed, none could be placed in the “citizen controlled” category, which is not surprising given that the survey focused on local government-maintained websites. The examples of best practice were classified in the “consultation” category (13% of those examined reflected Arnstein’s “consultation” bracket), while the vast majority of the other sites were well below this level. The principal features of the consultative category were information being provided as either an aid to communication between citizens and offi-cers or as complete documents and participatory materials. The forms of communication also varied from simple media such as telephone numbers and the times of meetings to less familiar ones, including e-mail, chatrooms, and bulletin boards. In this classification, those websites that appeared below the most par-ticipatory examples reflected the “information” category from Arnstein’s model and varied a great deal in their content and usefulness. The most effective fell into the “information provid-ers” (29%) and “guide to services” (28%) categories. The former provided Web-based information about participatory activities or how to contact officers who would be able to advise potential participants about a consultation, while the latter focused on “a-to-z of services” (electronic phonebooks of local authority services). Both categories can be seen as less participatory than the first group, as they require knowledge of the ways in which local authorities are organised as well as the consultation pro-cesses of statutory land-use planning. The remaining websites were either “advertising” their local authorities (16%), typified by tourism and local economic development information that attempted to encourage people to visit or invest in their area,

or appeared to offer little (“very limited content” group, 6%) or no information or access (the remaining 8%).

These findings indicate that Internet-based participatory ac-tivities of local government in Britain are really at an early stage. Although almost every authority has its own website, the contents and structure vary enormously, and only 13% could be classified as “participatory” in any meaningful sense. As well as providing a benchmark for future studies, the survey also allowed leading examples to be explored in greater depth. Following interviews in several local authorities across Scotland and England, three were selected for in-depth case study analysis involving interviews and the examination of multiple sources to help understand the activ-ity behind the digital ƒacades of their electronic communication and the actors’ views of public participation. The first example was a non-statutory land-use planning consultation exercise relating to housing. The second example was a strategic policy consulta-tion exercise that piloted community planning and engaged with participants from a number of sectors including the community. The final example was a mixed policy area that used advanced technologies to support approximately 60 digitally connected members of the authority’s citizens panel. This group was given policies to discuss, asked to gather information online, disseminate and collect their ideas through facilitated chatrooms, and advise elected members through several means, including in-person at specially organised meetings. The views of local authority offi-cers who were involved in these activities and those citizens who had chosen to communicate online (by e-mail in two cases and through chatrooms in the third) helped to understand the notions of participation that existed in the three case studies. During the course of the research, it became clear that digital methods could not be looked at in isolation, and so more traditional methods were also investigated (such as writing a letter or contributing at public meetings).

It should be reiterated that some good examples of digital participation already exist, but the field as a whole is very much in its infancy. A key finding is that actors’ views of participation vary in many different ways. These differences relate to the underpin-ning theoretical and philosophical meanings of participation that actors bring to exercises, the purposes that participation serves, the objectives that can be pursued, the issues involved, the audience being addressed, and, importantly for participatory approaches that use GI, the methods deployed. Public participation does not have a universal meaning. Even in the best examples, where a great deal of training and support existed, actors felt unfulfilled at the end of consultation exercises, even though they noted unexpected benefits such as learning new skills (in the case of some citizens) and readily responding to a limited number of e-mail queries (for some officials).

The complexity of public participation is underestimated because some view it as a linear process with neatly sequential stages such as a local authority initiating an exercise; placing docu-ments on deposit for public scrutiny; encouraging, receiving, and analysing responses; presenting the findings; and altering policy accordingly. The process is thought to pass through these (tem-


poral) stages without those actors involved altering their ideas of what “participation” is. This simplistic view is a poor reflection of what actually happens, as an activity is shaped by the actors’ initial and developing perceptions of what participation means and what it is used for, during, and long after the perceived “end” of the consultation exercise.

To examine the complexity of public participation in this context it is useful to consider different matrices that can be drawn up under five components of participation: issues for consultation, underlying notions of participation, methods, audiences, and out-comes (actual or desired). The local decision-making case study fo-cusing on housing gives a clear example of this. An interim policy document was published that focussed on the authority’s housing allocation and where new dwellings should be constructed (the “issue”). The authority’s underlying “notion” of participation was that they wanted as many “representative” people to contribute as possible and to be seen to have their voices heard. The “methods” used to engage with a certain section of the public, or “audience” (in this case, “residents” rather than other agencies or business), were many and varied. Some of these methods of participation were supplied by citizens or activists (letters of concern, standard letters, acting like a vote, and petitions) rather than the author-ity (feedback slips from a leaflet delivered to all residents in the borough, comment forms at public meetings, Web-based online feedback forms, and e-mail). The methods provided or sent by the citizens differed from those of the authority in format, style, and tone. In the other two case studies, the methods used and the issues being addressed were different, with particular outcomes for each. In general, audiences will decide what methods are suitable for them to both access and contribute information, and it should be recognised that some groups are more likely to use particular methods than others are. It is important to note that the citizens’ choice of methods can play a role in shaping the outcomes of an exercise, but that they are only one component of the five that can influence public participation.

This situation becomes further complicated as the current pursuit of public participation in numerous government-related activities can lead not only to “consultation fatigue” but to misrepresentation if the same public voices are heard. Varying methods are therefore necessary to gain wide and varied opinions. Additionally, in these top-down government-driven situations, it should be understood that not all issues are suitable for public consultation. For example, given the complexity of an issue such as Britain joining the Euro, should laypersons participate except through enacting their wills through the ballot box and their representative professional politicians?

Aside from the issues that can be consulted on, variations in the underlying “notion” of what participation is about are crucial. For example, in a local case about housing, the view of the officers leading the consultation was that participation is about gathering the opinions of a representative audience and gaining support for their policies. This notion, however, sits in the context of ideas in other departments in the authority and other institutions. As a result, there also may be an internal or

government “audience” with ideas about the appropriate external audience, the methods used, the issue under consultation, and what the outcomes should or could be. Therefore, multiple no-tions need to be mediated. Similarly, the citizens notions were not uniform: some felt that they were duty-bound to participate if asked by their local authority, while others were motivated by concerns about the value of their properties in relation to new housing developments, thus displaying the familiar “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome.

The findings of the research suggest that even the best exam-ples of public participation are often only driven by well-meaning individuals in a rather ad hoc fashion, without the process being “owned” by the whole organisation. This may be a reflection of the early stages of this process, but there is a strong need for local authorities to provide appropriate policies and strategies so that officers’ and citizens’ expectations are clearly managed, develop-ing and nurturing a relationship of trust. Public participation is not a unique and shared construct, and achieving meaningful participation is a very difficult challenge. It cannot be seen as an add-on to other activities but needs to permeate all activities because citizens tend to view their local authority as a single entity. Therefore, it is not fruitful if one unit in one department launches very open and consultative exercises when the rest of the authority remains closed and bureaucratic. Moreover, different methods of participation include and exclude different groups (Alty and Darke 1987), and in this respect digital participation is no different from other forms, although it offers particular opportunities and challenges of its own.

One of these opportunities/challenges is the increased “access” to political processes that the technology can afford. Some of the interviewees felt that technology had helped them to participate where it would not have been as readily possible before. For example, many parents felt that they were too busy to attend local public meetings as they had their children to look after. E-mail offered them the opportunity to respond from their own home. In another instance, an interviewee had mobility problems and was wary of crowded places. The technology had allowed participation in a project where this person could pause from chatroom discussions without feeling embarrassed. For oth-ers, e-mail and online information were far more convenient to use, given that all had the Internet at home, and it was cheaper to respond to than mail. In one case, the citizens involved had mixed abilities and would not normally have had the (mainly financial) resources to access the Internet. Following training, and the authority supplying equipment to some participants, they found that the participation process had allowed them to make new friends online, keep in touch with relatives around the world, and learn new skills. As noted above, these were outcomes of the participation activity that the authority did not anticipate at the outset of the project.

There is, however, a wider issue about what “access” can mean in the context of digital participation, reflecting technical, social, and political aspects. Access has not been seen solely as access to digital infrastructures but also as an individual’s ability to access


“networks, machines, information and know-how of IT [informa-tion technology]” (Dutton 1999:306; after Bryden et al. 1995:16). Kling (1999:58) outlined two types of access: technological and social. Technological access involves “the physical availability of suitable equipment, including computers of adequate speed and equipped with appropriate software for a given activity”. In contrast, social access comprises of the “know-how” needed to operate the equipment, reflecting “a mix of professional knowl-edge, economic resources, and technical skills to use technologies in ways that enhance professional practices and social life”.

In a digital participation context, ideas of access presented by Dutton, Bryden, and Kling have to be extended relating to ideas of power within a democratic framework (i.e., the ability not only to access and understand the information, but also to make effective use of it by leveraging power and affecting outcomes). This could be referred to as “political access”, which could also encompass the concept of an “equality of rights” based on the premise that current social and economic inequalities can undermine “formal equality”– the “legal right” to participate, and that the extent to which this occurs needs to be understood and challenged (Percy-Smith 1995:8). This may be particularly true where the differ-ences between the information/digital “haves” and “have-nots” are rapidly increasing. In relation to this, Tsagarousianou (1998:171) noted that even if a right of access is readily available to all citizens, will complimentary measures of their “competence” be developed? Will access to information naturally lead to a more informed public?

These questions are not easily answered without focused longitudinal research. There are signs, however, that at least some of these concerns are being taken on board. For example, the European Commission’s e-Inclusion policies for member states (Commission of the European Communities 2001) attempt to tackle social exclusion in the information society, and, in par-ticular, disadvantaged groups such as those with low incomes or disabilities. Education, training, and employment for citizens from member states are also discussed in this document, and these two approaches are very much about trying to sew together the digital divide and reflect, to an extent, current understandings of both physical and social access.

The document raises important issues that currently limit access to the information society such as prohibitive costs and the need for training to make people more digitally literate. There is also a recognition that a significant minority of those who do not currently have access to the “information society” do not wish to become involved. In this respect, a survey revealed that around 27% of non-users “are not interested in the Internet or don’t want to use it” (Ibid.:13). Therefore, it is important to recognise that efforts to increase the awareness and uptake of digital access must not be to the detriment of traditional forms of consultation and service delivery.

From this discussion, three related areas need addressing in terms of the debate for participatory approaches that use spatial information and access to GI.

Three Issues for ConsiderationThe first of these issues is a need to clearly identify the relationship between access to information and participation; the second re-lates to the different notions of access that can exist that underpin public participation; and the third is a need to look in greater depth to both the meaning of public participation and the specific issues raised by the use of GI and related technologies.

Relationships between Access to Information and Public ParticipationMuch of current information policy in Europe is geared primar-ily toward economic objectives, i.e., opening up public sector information to develop the information market and create jobs (see Craglia and Masser 2002). There are, however, signs that broader policy interests, particularly in the environmental field, are pushing for greater access to public sector information in general and GI in particular, for policy monitoring and evaluation. The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe initiative (INSPIRE, www.ec-gis-org/inspire) is a good example of this emerging interest. INSPIRE is geared toward increased informa-tion sharing between government bodies from local authorities to the European Union. Although this may not have a direct impact on public participation, the change in local authorities’ attitudes to collecting and disseminating information for others to re-use may benefit those interested in obtaining that same information for participatory practice, be that inside the authority or within communities or information services.

There are also many initiatives at the national and regional levels in Europe that are developing spatial data infrastructures with the purpose of sharing data among different organisations in the public and private sectors for the purpose of better governance, business, and more informed citizenship (see Craglia et al. 2002). Although participation by the public is not a specific focus of such initiatives, there are also some good examples of this kind, such as the Datashare Project (http://www.datashare.org.uk), which is a Web-based GIS being developed for the partners of a UK local authority’s community plan (including the authority, local businesses, voluntary groups, other key public sector agencies, and citizens). Varying levels of access are given to different groups (owing to information sensitivity), including citizens, and those accessing the website can overlay various policy areas. This allows people to identify areas of greatest need and to see if any areas are being missed, helping to target resources appropriately.

In some ways, access and participation are part of the same continuum. They both evolve around flows of information be-tween actors; access to information typically only “broadcasts”, whereas participation is more interactive. The participants at the meeting addressed this by suggesting that further research is needed on the role of government in the information society, with regard to access to information. This needs to involve an idea of participation in this process and what underlying expectations the actors have. It is important to understand the relationships

http://www.datashare.org)

http://www.datashare.org)


that exist in this context and whether they differ from more top-down government-held-information perspectives. This leads to the second point relating to what “access” may mean.

Notions of AccessAs noted above, “access” can take many guises and there is a need to build upon the initial ideas outlined here. There is clearly an issue about the difference between access to public sector information for political purposes, access that is intended for commercial development, and the information that may be held or generated at local levels to feed up to decision-makers. These “purposes” will lead to different expectations of what access could mean, have wider impacts on the success of a commercial enterprise, and influence the fostering of informed participation or decision making.

Niles and Hanson (2002; after Hanson 2000) noted the webs of social relations that occur in relation to access to information, whether this is in digital or traditional environments. These webs offer the starting points for developing theoretical positions that can help to understand the variations that exist for different groups in terms of their views of access. The webs may take the form of those interested in access from the point of view of industry, research, policy/deci-sion-makers, other public sector agencies, and citizens.

What is “Public Participation” in a GI Context?Two recent articles (Carver 2002, Weiner and Harris 2002) spe-cifically raised important issues in relation to Public Participation GIS. Looking ahead at promising avenues for research, it would appear that further work is needed in exploring both the mean-ing of public participation for the different actors involved in the process and the particular opportunities and challenges that the use of GI(S) creates.

One of the main areas of difficulty with Smith’s (2001) re-search was that no established body of literature discussed public participation in digital contexts. This work selected ideas from the democratic and planning theory, where a tradition has developed in looking at public participation in its various guises. This was coupled with a social construction of technology perspective, so that the social influences surrounding digital participation could be approached and better understood. This is one way to examine the subject, but a plethora of definitions exist for public participa-tion. Weiner et al. (2001) suggested that, on the top rungs of an Arnstein model, the public has a full voice through community organisation and that for the purposes of their text public partici-pation is seen as grassroots community engagement. Even within these relatively focussed definitions, there are issues that relate to what participation may mean for those involved when com-munity groups make the final decision. The democratic theory suggests that there is a problem with groups making decisions for the individual. For example, the “incompatibility problem”, where individuals are “dependent on the assent or actions of

many others to secure what they want” (Christiano 1996:25), means that all participants must relinquish some of their utility or desires in order for a consensus to be reached. Some issues, and particularly those of a spatial nature relating to “NIMBY-ism”, have to deal with this problem of consensus building where no one is likely to “win”.

Given, as stated above, that participatory activity can be seen as a complicated network of elements that shape each other, there is a need for greater exploration as to what participation may mean and to develop matrices that relate notions of par-ticipation, issues, audiences, methods, and outcomes. Clearly, a research programme with detailed longitudinal case studies and participant observation methodologies offers a promising avenue in which to develop these ideas.

The second line of enquiry relates to what might be specific to GI(S) that is not covered in broader issues of public participa-tion, in general, and public participation in digital context, in particular. Here much of the recent discussion (Carver 2002, Craglia and Masser 2002, Niles and Hanson 2002, Weiner and Harris 2002) has tended to emphasise the complexity of GI, which requires more advanced levels of skill and knowledge to be correctly understood, interpreted, and used. This is undoubtedly an additional challenge to other forms of non-spatial information to which users may be more familiar. One way to address this issue would be to build on what planning terms as an “advocacy” approach: where specialists act not just as “neutral” technicians, but actively seek to exploit their knowledge for the benefit of the communities they are responsible for or are embedded within. It is in this vein that much of the research-led projects documented in the scientific literature that are as examples of best practice could be read. They are not just research projects, but also situations where researchers act as advocates on behalf of communities.

Whilst GI does pose some additional challenges, it also of-fers opportunities. There is much evidence to suggest that whilst public participation beyond the ballot box is (still) only limited to few cases, issues that present themselves in a local setting at-tract greater interest and motivation than strategic or distant ones. Hence, attempts made to foster public participation at local levels will be more promising for fuller engagement between actors and the issues involved. Within this context, GI offers opportunities because it helps define and contextualise local issues in relation to neighbouring areas and can support the development of a shared understanding of issues within a community (Craglia et al. 1999). Useful axes of research here are the development of more locally based information resources (place-based GIS), but also the poten-tial partnerships that can be developed with actors in the market-place so that the experimentation and demonstrators developed are not merely project-based, and as such often of a limited life-span, but can then be developed in a much wider and sustainable setting. A useful model in this case is the success of value-added services such as Upmystreet.com (http://www.upmystreet.com), which not only provides local information of value to existing and potential residents, but also sets the framework for developing community-based information forums, which can then be mobilised for com-

54 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Tulloch, Shapiro 55

mon action (e.g., for the leverage of funds). This area of partnership between research, communities, and the market is worthy of further investigation with carefully analysed demonstrators.

ConclusionThe research undertaken by Smith and others in this and the previous issue of the URISA Journal provides a useful starting point for debate, but certain areas should be developed much further. In summary, there is a need to determine the connection between public participa-tion and access to information, to understand that “access” can have various meanings in different contexts, and that similarly there are multi-faceted aspects of public participation that need to be analysed in much greater depth. Public participation is a complicated process, and the rather unproblematic way in which it is portrayed in much of government policy and academic literature should be of concern. Specific to the geographic information dimension, this article has indicated that this area offers particular challenges as well as some opportunities, if for no other reason than because citizens tend to have a greater interest in “local” issues and can connect with them more readily. Hence, a place-based research programme with a strong comparative and cross-cultural dimension that enables movement from individual cases to more general issues appears to be a promising avenue to further this important area of research.

About the Author

Robin S. Smith is a Research Associate at the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield, UK. His main research interests include exploring public participation and access to information in local government contexts, and the role of various methods, from both policy and theoretical perspectives. With a background in ecology, Robin is interested in public access to environmental information in European contexts and is the assistant coordinator of the European Com-mission funded Geographical Information Network in Europe (GINIE) project (http://www.ec-gis.org/ginie).

Corresponding Address:Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, [email protected]@sheffield.ac.uk

Acknowledgement


References

Alty, R. and R. Darke, 1987, A City Centre for People: Involving the Community in Planning for Sheffield’s Central Area. Planning Practice and Research, 3(1), 7-12.

Arnstein, S.R., 1969, A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216-224.

Carver, S., 2002, Participation and Geographical Information: A Position Paper. URISA Journal, (15) APA I pages: 61-71

Christiano, T., 1996, The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory (Oxford: Westview Press).

Commission of the European Communities, 2001, E-Inclusion: The Information Society’s Potential for Social Inclusion in Europe. Commission Staff Working Paper SEC, 1428 (Brus-sels: Commission of the European Communities).

Craglia, M., A. Annoni, R.S. Smith, and P. Smits, 2002, Spatial Data Infrastructures: Country Reports. European Commis-sion – Joint Research Centre, EUR 20428 EN.

Craglia, M., L. Leontodou, G. Nuvolati, and J. Schweikart, 1999, Evaluating Quality of Life in European Regions and Cities (Brussels: Committee of the Regions).

Craglia, M. and I. Masser, 2001, Access to Geographic Information: A European Perspective. Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001.

Dutton, W.H., 1999, Society on the Line: Information Politics in the Digital Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Kling, R., 1999, Can the “Next Generation Internet” Effectively Support “Ordinary Citizens.” The Information Society, 15(1), 57-63.

Niles, S. and S. Hanson, 2001, A New Era of Accessibility: Or Is It? Workshop on Access to Geographic Information and Partici-patory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001. http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Spoleto/NilesHanson.pdf

Percy-Smith, J., 1995, Digital Democracy: Information and Com-munication Technologies in Local Politics. Research Report No. 14. (London: Commission for Local Democracy).

Smith, R.S., 2001, Public Participation in the Digital Age: A Focus on British Local Government. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Sheffield, Sheffield.

Tsagarousianou, Z., 1998, Electronic Democracy and the Public Sphere. In Tsagarousianou, Z., D. Tambini, and C. Bryan (Eds.), Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Net-works (London: Routledge), 167-178.

Weiner, D. and T.M. Harris, 2002, Community Integrated Geo-graphical Information Systems for Land Reform in South Af-rica. URISA Journal, (15)APA II pages: To Be Announced.

Weiner, D., T. Harris, and W. Craig, 2001, Community Participa-tion and Geographic Information Systems. Workshop on Ac-cess to Geographic Information and Participatory Approaches Using Geographic Information, Spoleto, Italy, December 6-8, 2001. http://www.shef.ac.uk/~scgisa/spoleto/workshop.htm



IntroductionA growing literature is emerging on the topics of Public Participa-tion Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) (e.g., Craig et al. 2002) and access to data (e.g., Craig 1992 or Masser and Campbell 1995). Much of this is predicated on a basic assumption that healthy participation in public decisions requires relatively fluid sharing of data from producers to likely participants (Onsrud 1998). While there is a common assumption that limited or no access has prevented participation, there has been little explora-tion of the relationship between data sharing and participation. This relationship deserves more attention than it traditionally receives. Our examination offers reasons to believe that partici-pants’ “success” is not as closely linked to access and participation as might be assumed.

There are many different ways of describing the activities of participation and access, but we are particularly interested in the supply-side aspects of these issues. That is to say, we are inter-ested in occasions when a data-producing government agency is responsible for limiting access or when a decision-making agency prevents citizens from participating in decisions. This should not be taken to imply that other barriers to access (such as econom-ics, education, and geography) are not equally important, but simply focuses the discussion on this one important and visible component of access and participation.

This article offers a practical means for describing differ-ent levels of public access to data. It describes a framework for considering the relationship between access and participation in public situations. The framework that we describe argues for a more complex relationship than might be suggested by the com-mon binary offering of either no access and participation or an abundance of access and participation. Additionally, this frame-work illustrates areas where future research should be directed to help fill gaps in the Geographic Information System (GIS) case-study literature.

The Intersection of Data Access And Public Participation: Impacting GIS Users’ Success?

David L. Tulloch and Tamara Shapiro

Abstract: Discussions about Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (GIS) often combine ideas about access and participation as if the terms were nearly synonymous. This article describes a framework that treats access and participation as distinct characteristics of public GIS use and suggests ways in which they interact. It builds this framework with two “ladders;” a new conceptual “ladder of data access” is offered to compliment the more traditional ladder of public participation. The framework also suggests that successful and unsuccessful outcomes may not rely as heavily on access and participation as is often presumed. Both real and hypothetical cases are used to illustrate the eight different types of situations that are created in this framework.

Public Participation As a ProgressionArnstein’s “ladder of participation” (1969) has been used to describe public participation as a multi-level process (Carver 2002). Each rung on the ladder represents a level of public deci-sion-making authority, ranging from manipulation (tokenism) to citizen control (citizen power). Arnstein’s ladder was comprised of only eight rungs, but there could be many more with using more detailed distinctions. The point is that many gradations and distinctions exist in the spectrum of public participation programs (Arnstein 1969:217). In 1993, Weidemann and Femers adjusted Arnstein’s participation ladder to reflect a somewhat more pragmatic viewpoint (Figure 1).

The first two rungs of Weidemann and Femers’ ladder, “the public right to know” and “informing the public,” reflect a com-mon understanding of access as a form of participation. This conceptualization blurs the distinction between participation and access by suggesting that informing the public is simply a form of participation. One could just as easily define access based on “access” to the decision-making process. This would render ac-cess and participation as not only closely linked, but practically indiscernible. Although this may lead to some very interesting discussions, that discussion undermines the utility of the distinc-tions we are exploring here. Instead, we suggest that public access and participation be treated as occasionally overlapping, often related, but never quite the same.

The Ladder of Public Access In discussions of public decision-making processes, the term “ac-cess,” like “participation,” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Here we use it narrowly to describe the degrees to which data users might use or acquire public data from a variety of public and private sources.


The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) conducted a nationwide survey of likely framework data producers (the survey process has been detailed by Tulloch and Robinson 2000). The FGDC Framework Data Survey asked data produc-ers questions about several different ways in which they allow access to data (Tulloch and Fuld 2001). The responses indicated a progressing spectrum of access activities. While the vast ma-jority of producers allowed data sharing, very few producers actively advertised their data in data clearinghouses or catalogs. In between the producers who actively facilitated the distribution of their data and those who did not share data at all were four other levels of access (Figure 2). Three common forms of access were: data sharing (88%), limited data redistribution (75%), and participation in a coordinating council (42%). Since these three activities often require minimal exertion on the part of the data producer, we group them as “casual” access practices. The three less common access activities were: implementation of a policy on data dissemination (40%), unrestricted data redistribution (30%), and advertising data in a clearinghouse or catalog (9%). The latter three activities demonstrate a greater commitment to access, since they often require more work and can involve ad-ditional exposure to risk.

Based on the results of this survey, we constructed a some-what parallel “ladder of access” metaphor that shows a range of access levels, from the low rung of data sharing to the high rung of advertising data (Figure 2). Admittedly, the levels in this ladder are more measured and specific than those in either participation ladder.

There are many reasons that access may not be available. Some organizations would suggest that they simply do not have the resources, such as time, finances, or technology, to facilitate access to their data. Others might seek to increase the value of their data by limiting its availability. Speculation about low-quality data or inappropriate decision making often surfaces in association with limited access. Many limit access as part of a larger attempt to generate revenue through various cost recovery

Figure 1. The widely embraced “ladder of public participation” (from Arnstein 1969) is reproduced from Weidemann and Femers (1993). This metaphor has served as a basis for public participation research (and subsequently PPGIS work) for the better part of the last three decades.

Figure 2. The ladder of public access as constructed from responses to the FGDC Framework Data Survey. Each rung of the ladder is labeled with the percentage of local governments reported to be engaged in the different levels of access (Tulloch 2001).

efforts. Some organizations have not enacted a policy of access, but only casually release their data to those who “jump through hoops” to get it.

For the purposes of this article, we suggest another reason that data might not be available: the government agency (associ-ated with a low level of access) simply does not have the data. Certainly, it would not be a surprise to find that agencies with less data are less aggressively pursuing advanced access policies such as advertising their data.

Bringing Together Participation and Access Participation and access, while often linked, are clearly distinct issues. The ladders of participation and access demonstrate ways that they each can be experienced at varying levels. How the two activities relate is more complicated.

Conventional wisdom holds that access is a key prerequisite to participation, with the general assumption that GIS use will be unsuccessful when access and participation are denied and will be successful when they are both present at high levels. Clearly, participation and access are related, but does access bear par-ticipation as a necessity? What roles do access and participation play in determining successful outcomes? We can explore these ideas further by examining possible combinations that could exist between the presence and absence of both concerns.

For simplicity, we identify the extremes of four different descriptions of situations: 1) No or Low Levels of Access, 2) High Levels of Access, 3) No or Low Levels of Participation, and 4) High Levels of Participation. These descriptions can be combined to describe four different types of access and participation situations (Figure 3). Types I and IV seem to represent a positive correlation between increasing levels of access and participation that reflects the conventional wisdom on the relationship between participa-tion and access. However, further discussion of the permutations reveals the opportunities that lie elsewhere.


In our analysis, we also consider participant outcomes: did the data user (organization or individual) meet his/her objectives using the data or information that they attempted to access. We will assume two different thresholds: the role of the user and the difficulty of the project. The potential participant should actually play a role in the successful achievement of their goal if it is to have some significance in our framework. The potential participant should also have a goal of some difficulty in order to be considered.

Four Types of Access/Participation SituationsFor each of the four types of situations, we describe the condi-tions at play in that circumstance and a case of successful and unsuccessful GIS use.

Type I This category describes a combination of no or limited level of access with no or limited level of participation. Type I might most easily be associated with environments in which there exists a relatively limited interest on the government’s part in allowing the public to have any sort of role in government decisions. A hypo-thetical Type I example would be a community group wishing to participate in the process of siting of a military facility. Although the community may well have a stake in the location of such a facility, any public access to geographic data and participation in the decision are outweighed by issues of national security. The eventual construction of the facility would render the community group’s efforts “unsuccessful.”

However, we might include a different scenario, such as one where a user of Geographic Information Technology (GIT) (e.g., The Nature Conservancy) finds the available data lacking (effectively a low level of access) and generates its own data to identify land to acquire as an end-run around government agen-cies which will not or have not preserved the properties that The Nature Conservancy sees as much important.

The distinction that we can draw between the community group opposing the military facility and The Nature Conservancy is that one group is able to successfully achieve its goals (through a combination of access and participation) and one is not (due to a lack of both access and participation). Certainly, it may be surprising to realize that Type I situations can still lead to out-comes that can be termed successful. Regrettably, these situations do not appear to be very common because they require significant resources and a willingness to employ them.

Type IISituations in which a high level of access is coupled with a low level of participation are categorized as Type II. These situations involve the denial of participation, which are not well documented within the GIS community. A hypothetical example of an unsuc-cessful Type II can be imagined in the case of a federal Environ-mental Impact Statement (EIS). A typical public participation process within the EIS begins with the initial scoping process as a federal agency engages stakeholders in identifying initial project issues. Based on these identified issues, the agency prepares a comprehensive EIS, often generating enormous amounts of data to describe the affected area and to identify the possible environ-mental consequences of proposed alternatives. After a draft EIS is prepared, the public can access the document and supporting data and provide comments to which the federal agency is required to respond. In some cases, citizens and citizen groups complain that an agency decision is predetermined, that large amounts of data are produced to obscure a flawed decision-making process, or that the data provided are simply too complex or erroneous. If their assertion is true, then a Type II situation would apply: access to data is provided, but the level of participation is limited.

Type IIIThe Type III situation presents a less expected variation from those where data access and participation are linked so tightly that they are always present or absent together. The Type III situation is one in which there is limited access, but a high level of participa-tion. One example would be a non-governmental organization (NGO) such as a local watershed association that was alarmed by a proposed development (originally described in Tulloch 1998). The municipality whose planning board would be hearing the case had neither GIS nor any spatial data regarding existing conditions or possible impacts from the proposed development; we would describe this as a low level of access. The watershed association collected data from their own resources and from other public resources in order to analyze possible impacts from the develop-ment. They presented their findings at the public hearing of the proposed project and convinced the municipality to reconsider giving the “go ahead” for the project. The ability to produce maps from existing data sources helped the watershed association to participate meaningfully in the decision-making process.

In another example, NGOs in New Jersey suggested that maps produced from their “private databases have gotten them

Figure 3. This matrix shows the four types of situations that result from considering different combinations of the presence and absence of access and participation.


more involved in planning board decisions” (Tulloch 1998). They believed that the maps (otherwise unavailable to the board) helped the board to take them seriously. They were only able to truly par-ticipate (to have their opinions be fully considered by the board) once the maps demonstrated that the organization possessed a sophisticated understanding or ability that gave their opinion sufficient weight to be considered. Still, they admitted, sometimes they were unsuccessful in convincing the board that the evidence they presented was sufficient cause to deny an applicant permis-sion to proceed with a proposed development. While they were unsuccessful in changing the outcome of the final decision, the NGOs were engaged in a high level of participation very similar to that described by Weidemann and Femers (1993) as “assessing risks and recommending solutions.”

Type IVAnother category combining access and participation – called Type IV – is a combination of high levels of both access and participation. The quintessential Type IV participant would be a group, such as The Wilderness Society, who, acting on behalf of their members and trustees, acquires spatial data to be used to influence environmental policy. Norheim (1999, in press) de-scribed an example in which the Wilderness Society accessed US Forest Service data and challenged it with their own as a means of participating in a major policy debate. To a reasonable degree, the organization achieves their goals through a combination of access and representative participation.

A less clear situation might be the citizens who download and use public data to create convincing portrayals of development problems in their neighborhood but find that the local planning board – even after fully considering the new presentation of ideas – remains unconvinced and issues a decision that does not satisfy the interests of the citizen-participants. The citizens experienced a relatively high level of participation since they were heard and taken seriously, even though they were unsuccessful in changing the outcome of decision. It is considered unsuccessful because the outcome did not achieve the citizens’ goals.

Standing in the Intersection The previously described examples illustrate ways in which par-ticipatory success can be experienced by GIS users. While the examples are more anecdotal, they demonstrate that user success does not depend on high levels of access and participation and is not guaranteed by it (Figure 4). It is worth noting that the suc-cessful scenarios for Types I and II both required extremely specific statements of the data users’ goals – outside the purview of the involved government agencies – in order to describe a successful outcome. The difficulty in constructing these scenarios illustrates the overall difficulty in success without a relatively high level of participation. The key element is that success requires action by some entity other than the agency making data accessible.

Recognizing that each type of participation-access has both successful and unsuccessful options begins to alter a basic as-sumption that individuals and groups cannot succeed without access and participation. It also raises the unfortunate possibility in democratic societies of having high levels of access and partici-pation and still feeling as though the effort was unsuccessful.

At this time the relationship between access and participa-tion is described based on limited case studies. However, the very proposal of this identifies some interesting patterns in the case-study literature. In particular it highlights (through our reliance on hypothetical cases) types that are less commonly captured in the literature. There are several potential reasons why these situ-ations are difficult to find in the literature:a) they simply may not happen frequently; b) it is harder to write about failures and even harder to write

about politically uncomfortable situations (e.g., denials of access and participation); or

c) as the academic GIS community, we have simply been overlooking these occurrences.

Future DirectionsThe discussion of the relationships described in this article is meant as a preliminary framework for future research. Were it to be used, we would hope for continued revisions and refinements. Certainly as additional cases are identified, they would assist in

Figure 4. This matrix includes each of the examples mentioned in the text, placed in correspondence with the type of situations with which they could most closely be associated.

Figure 5. This matrix is offered to summarize the hypothesized likelihood of successful and unsuccessful outcomes for each type. It includes the two most likely and least likely outcomes that the authors anticipate finding in future research efforts.


the development of much more robust definitions of the terms and assumptions that have been used thus far. Additional cases could also help demonstrate any correlations that might exist between specific conditions.

Building on this preliminary discussion of the framework for considering how access and participation relate, future research is encouraged that better illustrates all eight possible outcomes (successful and unsuccessful example of Types I–IV). Addition-ally, future research could explore the extent to which each type of situation arises. We have hypothesized our own expectations as to how this likelihood might be distributed (Figure 5). The clustering that may be evidenced by actual patterns of access and participation could reveal much more important realities about the circumstances under which organizations and individuals find themselves trying to succeed.

Another question for further consideration is the relationship between the four types of situations and how it relates to the model for Multipurpose Land Information System (MPLIS) develop-ment (Tulloch 1999) which describes the final stage of develop-ment as democratization and which links the benefit of equity (or empowerment or engagement) to the MPLIS development model (Tulloch and Epstein 2002). Access and participation are both described as being conditions generally required for success-ful achievement of democratization, but this framework suggests a more complex view. While it might not alter the fundamental model, the types of access/participation in the framework may offer a new understanding for the model.

The context in which the authors have made their prelimi-nary development of this framework is the traditional American democratic community in which access and participation are typi-cal community standards and agencies generally work toward the appearance or actual provision of access and participation. A very exciting opportunity exists to expand this framework within the much more complex European setting, where expectations about the nature of government vary from one nation to the next.

Like any model, the one described here is a simplification of a much more complex reality. The authors are quite interested in seeing this rather simplistic model expand to capture the more complex realities of access and participation. The metaphors of the access and participation ladders certainly suggest the possibility of a 6 x 6 matrix capturing their possible combinations. However, subtle distinctions between varying levels of participation and access would seem to complicate this as a practical tool. Instead, we might suggest a simple next step of expanding all three axes to three categories (none, low, and high for participation and ac-cess; successful, mixed and successful for outcomes). The binary scheme proves useful as an initial point of departure; it offers a very manageable set of eight combinations. In contrast, a 3 x 3 x 3 matrix offers many more possibilities and opportunities to provide a much more complex description of the patterns that are occurring in these systems. Whatever the resolution, this catego-rization of cases should contribute the ongoing, albeit informal, formation of a taxonomy of Public Participation GIS.

About the Authors

David Tulloch is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architec-ture at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He also serves as the Associate Director for Program Development at Rutgers’ Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis.

Corresponding Address:Department of Landscape Architecture93 Lipman DriveCook CollegeRutgers, The State University of New JerseyNew Brunswick, NJ 08901Phone: 732.932.1581Fax: [email protected]

Tamara Shapiro is the Sumner M. Swaner Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Utah State University. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Cor-nell University and is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. Her research interests include PPGIS in natural resource planning.

Corresponding Address:The Swaner Green Space InstituteLandscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Utah State University4005 Old Main HillLogan, UT 84322-4005Phone: 435.797.0960Fax: [email protected]

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible, in part, through support from the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (Hatch No. 84101).


mailto:[email protected]


60 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Weiner, Harris 61

References

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Norheim, Robert A. In press. How institutional context affects process and results: Comparing two old growth forest map-ping projects. Cartographica (special issue on PPGIS).

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IntroductionAlmost a decade after the first democratic government was elected in South Africa, the euphoria of transformation and reconcilia-tion has begun to recede. While there have been improvements in basic service provision for some South Africans since the transfer of power in June 1994, the redistribution of economic and en-vironmental resources has been slow and uneven (Khosa 2002). Transformation is increasingly viewed as requiring a prolonged period of political, economic, and attitudinal change, for the social and spatial impacts of colonialism and apartheid remain deeply embedded in the landscape of the “new” South Africa.

The South African space-economy still suffers from extreme levels of uneven development, landlessness, and structural unem-ployment, and historical systems of labor migration continue.1 Many rural and peri-urban South Africans view the land question as interconnected with formal and informal employment opportu-nities. Residents of the former “homelands” prefer access to both jobs and land simultaneously (Levin and Weiner 1997a). Unfor-tunately, job creation is much slower than expected and effective land reform is difficult to implement rapidly. Millions of South Africans still experience an ongoing social reproduction crisis, and land tensions are on the rise. In the absence of substantial delivery of land and natural resources to South Africa’s impover-ished masses, grassroots struggles, including squatting, are likely to intensify. The experiences of Zimbabwe are particularly relevant in this regard (Moyo 1995, Masilela and Weiner 1996).

The transition from apartheid to development in South Af-rica (Crush 1995, Levin and Weiner 1997b) is fraught with such contradictions. For example, the mantra of community participa-tion and empowerment has become standard vocabulary within emerging public, private, and non-governmental organization (NGO)-based development institutions. Unfortunately, drawing on this new discourse has rarely translated into more inclusive and democratic plans and projects. Discursive calls for com-munity participation and empowerment too often re-appear as

Community-integrated GIS for Land Reform in South Africa

Daniel Weiner and Trevor M. Harris

Abstract: This article examines the role that GIS plays in how people view, exploit, and manage their physical resource base. The research contributes to the growing Participatory GIS literature and offers insight gained from the implementation of a Community-integrated GIS in South Africa. The Central Lowveld CiGIS explored landscape politics and struggles through the inclusion of socially differentiated community spatial stories and cognitive maps in a GIS to produce representations of local and regional political ecologies. Non-hegemonic ways of knowing and exploiting nature and environment were incorporated into the multimedia GIS. The paper provides conceptual and methodological guidance for integrating local community knowledge with geo-spatial technologies. The connection, however, to local policy making proved difficult to sustain because of dramatic policy and personnel changes within national and regional implementation agencies in the transition to post-apartheid government.

conventional planning projects that peripherally involve targeted beneficiaries. This is the case in contemporary South Africa, where a neo-liberal macroeconomic framework, combined with a long history of top-down and highly bureaucratic decision making, has created a planning environment that remains situated within a modernization framework.

The transition to democracy in South Africa has been sup-ported by the rapid diffusion of Geographic Information System (GIS) applications (Cinderby 1995). In South Africa, as elsewhere, GIS is frequently used for digital map production and, in some cases, stands accused of transforming bad data into impres-sive-looking maps. Significantly, many thriving GIS consulting agencies linked to segments of the former Apartheid State were privatized before the transition of power in 1994. As a result, the GIS industry is booming in the transition from apartheid to development, and the types of GIS applications emerging tend to reinforce traditional planning applications.2

The reinvention of modernization theory and practice in South Africa is taking place in the context of a discursive shift toward participatory forms of social change. This need not be a contradiction, as participation in practice often acts to legitimize top-down projects. But South Africa has a long history of civil society struggle and activism. As a result, it is likely that some par-ticipatory initiatives that are popular and effective will emerge and it will be interesting to see if practices of community participation in South Africa can be successfully linked with GIS applications. Macdevette et al. (1999:923) argued for such an integration: “Further investment is needed in the research and development of GIS based tools as well as information required for community participatory planning…. Community level systems can be built, with expert help, to empower people and enable officials to run truly participatory development planning processes.”

This article presents research results from a recently com-pleted GIS and Society project located in the Central Lowveld of South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province (Figure 1). The project was


concerned with participatory applications of GIS in support of the redistribution of natural resources in post-apartheid South Africa. Regional political ecology was the conceptual lens for conducting the research. Mapping and analyzing geographies of struggle, the local politics of land and water use, and future “environmental imaginaries” (Peet and Watts 1996) were central to the research. The project is an experiment in the application of Community-integrated GIS (CiGIS) in a highly differentiated society that is in transition. The research focused on: 1) the integration of socially differentiated local knowledge in a GIS in the form of cognitive maps; 2) the embedding of qualitative data within a GIS through linkages to spatial multimedia; and 3) exploring representations of Central Lowveld political ecologies. Central to this research is the production of maps and GIS representations of community spatial stories (Aitken 2002).

GIS, Society, and Participatory GISThe merging of participatory development and geo-spatial technologies is a core GIS and Society concern (Harris and Weiner 1996, 1998, Schroeder 1996, Craig et al. 2002). The early prominence given to Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) is as much associated with the desire to address the criticisms leveled at established GIS as to explore alternative forms of GIS production, use, access, and representation. These deficiencies have been well documented in GIS and Society literature (e.g., Chrisman 1987, Taylor 1990, 1991, Edney 1991, Goodchild 1991, 1995, Open-shaw 1991, 1992, Pickles 1991, 1995, 1999, Taylor and Overton 1991, 1992, Yapa 1991, Smith 1992, Dobson 1993, Lake 1993, Mark 1993, Obermeyer 1993, Sheppard 1993a, 1993b, 1995, Curry 1994, 1995, 1998, Aitken and Michel 1995, Crampton 1995, Goss 1995a ,1995b, Harris et al. 1995, Onsrud and Rush-ton 1995, Rundstrom 1995, Taylor and Johnston 1995, Krygier 1996, Dunn et al. 1997, Harris and Weiner 1998, Harvey and Chrisman 1998, Leitner et al. 1999). The remote sensing com-

munity is also engaged in these debates (Liverman et al. 1998). That PPGIS originated within the GIS and Society discussion has been invaluable in identifying critical issues and in guiding the design of alternative systems for implementation.

The very nature of PPGIS has forced researchers to not only confront GIS and Society concerns, but to design and adapt geo-graphic information systems that specifically address the needs of participant communities. While the overall characteristics of PPGIS are becoming clearer, precise definitions are not easy to determine. As a result, a diversity of approaches to PPGIS imple-mentation are emerging that are characterized by: the design of systems that specifically seek to empower

communities and individuals and encourage public participation in GIS-based decision making;

the integration of local knowledge to minimize the structural knowledge distortion of traditional GIS applications;

systems and structures that provide public access to GIS information;

provisions for public input and interaction in GIS decision-making processes with concomitant reduction in the enforced public passivity in decision making arising as a direct result of the technology itself;

research that acknowledges and minimizes the surveillant capabilities and potential intrusiveness of GIS into the private life of individuals;

the use of innovative geo-visualization and GIS-multimedia methods that incorporate and represent differing forms of quantitative and qualitative knowledge; and

the integration of GIS with the Internet.

How PPGIS might be designed and produced to address these issues has led to creative discussions focused on the technol-ogy as well as on the institutional structures within which PPGIS might operate (Elwood and Leitner 1998, Obermeyer 1998, Craig et al. 1999, 2002). Researchers have begun to disentangle some of the threads that were woven into the early enthusiastic discus-sions on PPGIS. One of the more crucial elements of PPGIS is the nature of the public participation process itself. Participatory research is an extensive research field and an application domain in its own right. Although there is significant literature on pub-lic participation, it is perhaps the least understood component of PPGIS (Abbot et al. 1998). Specific PPGIS design, content, structure, and implementation are being conditioned by the na-ture of the public participation process, the specific applications and technologies employed, and the cultural context of PPGIS production and use. Like GIS itself, PPGIS exhibits both general application characteristics as well as context-dependent features. For these reasons, differing forms of participation and participa-tory GIS are emerging (Mitchell 1997, Talen 1999, Rambaldi and Callosa 2000, Craig et al. 2002, URISA 2002).

Community-integrated GIS Designing a participatory GIS in the light of the GIS and Society critique is no easy task, and our field-based research in South

Figure 1


Africa has provided valuable insight into some of the central is-sues in PPGIS development. While acknowledging that “public participation” will take many forms, we envisage a community GIS that does not necessarily rest in the hands of, or is operated by, the community itself. This approach was born of our experi-ences in South Africa. In pre-1994 South Africa, the hegemonic power relations embedded within GIS were eminently apparent. Grand Apartheid was, in essence, a geographical project and it was through the agencies of the State that apartheid was imple-mented and maintained. Control over geographical information by “white” state agencies clearly placed the technology far from the realms of a value-neutral and objective system. In addition, the surveillant capabilities of GIS, knowledge engineering, and the control of populations were critical components of colonial and apartheid socio-spatial control. Significant issues in apartheid South Africa included structural knowledge distortion and the emphasis on top-down decision making, the pre-eminence given to western forms of knowledge representation, the commodifica-tion of digital data and its control by spatial data institutions, and the existence of a bureaucratic-informational complex. As the current scramble for data and GIS in post-apartheid South Africa demonstrates, the power relations associated with GIS ac-cess and use significantly impacts contemporary spatial planning and landscape politics.

With this as background, the research was grounded in field-work at a very early stage. The logistical and practical problems arising from differential access and limited local capacity had a major influence on our conception of PPGIS. GIS requires significant resources to both acquire the necessary data and establish and maintain an operational system. These resources have largely been available only to state and private business. In the United States, it is certainly not beyond the capability of a skilled individual to acquire the computer and software resources to develop a GIS project (Elwood 2002). The United States is also fortunate in having a number of national spatial databases avail-able at nominal or no cost. The Framework concept promoted by the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the National Spatial Database Infrastructure Committee is facilitating the development of a national spatial database and the dissemination of spatial information through the clearinghouse concept in which local, regional, and national spatial data resources can be shared and exploited. However, the reality that small groups or communities (especially if impoverished or underfunded) will have the resources and expertise (or even the desire) to develop, maintain, and oper-ate long-term GIS is problematic, even in western industrialized societies. Although commendable in spirit, the practicality of implementing a PPGIS in resource-poor communities is only selectively feasible at this time. We suggest, however, that our ex-perience in South Africa is not unique and that participatory GIS projects will inevitably be grounded in place-based fieldwork and the realities of local politics, community organizational structures, and institutional capacity.

As elaborated elsewhere (Harris and Weiner 1998), CiGIS provides an arena in which varied forms of knowledge are inte-

grated within the GIS and local landscape politics and resource management issues are played out openly. CiGIS is thus aug-mented through Internet-facilitated multimedia functionality. Linking narratives, oral histories, photographs, moving images, and animation to GIS provides enormous capability to increase not only the richness and diversity of the information available but also more closely parallel the manner in which communities know or conceive of their space. We propose, therefore, not a replacement of existing agency responsibility for local GIS but a redefining of what such systems might “look” like and how they might be extended into communities to achieve greater public participation and ownership. State agencies in South Africa were very receptive and enthusiastic toward such an approach, but major obstacles encountered at local and regional scales plagued implementation.

The Mpumalanga Case StudyThe Mpumalanga Province is a transitional area between the relatively cool and moist highveld plateau (over 1200 m in alti-tude) and the hot and dry lowveld (200-600 m in altitude). Mean annual rainfall ranges from 400-700 mm in the lowveld to 1000-1500 mm on the escarpment and parts of the highveld. These environmental features, combined with the history of colonial and apartheid forced removals and resulting peri-urbanization, have produced a landscape of extreme social and ecological variation (Figures 2, 3, and 4). The total population of the Province is over three million, of which one-third live in urban areas and almost half reside in the former homelands.

The case-study area of the Central Lowveld sub-region is located mainly within the Lowveld Escarpment District of Mpumalanga Province, but also includes a small portion of Bushbackridge to the north. The latter is disputed territory in the Northern Province and includes portions of the former Leb-owa and Gazankulu homelands. Intensive and exotic industrial forest plantations and large-scale commercial fruit and vegetable

Figure 2


farms dominate the western third of the case-study area. Forestry companies also control large tracts of state land in the area, which is an important land-use issue discussed later in the article. Forest plantations and large-scale commercial farms thrive on a highly skewed system of water access. During the apartheid era, the social production of this watershed was centered on a complex system of dams and tributaries (Figures 2 and 3). These dams capture valuable water for large-scale commercial farms (Woodhouse 1997). The re-engineering of Central Lowveld hydrology was a lifelong project of the influential apartheid architect and project participant, Braum Raubenheimer.

The former homelands of KaNgwane, Gazankulu, and Leb-owa are located east of the agriculture and forestry plantations. These bantustans remain overcrowded and poorly serviced relics of Grand Apartheid. Land demand is high, water is in short sup-ply, and the history of forced removals remains fresh in peoples’ memories and imaginaries. Historically, political struggles have been connected to the ongoing decline in access to land, water, and biomass resources (Levin and Weiner 1997a). Approximately one-quarter of the 477 households interviewed in the case-study area in 1993 were a direct victim of at least one forced removal. Furthermore, over three-quarters of the sample population ex-pressed the desire to participate in a land-reform program. Over 40% had to travel more than 100 meters to access water (Weiner et al. 1997). The combination of local knowledge and hydrological data indicate that, over time, there has been a reduction in water flow to the former homelands (Weiner et al. 1995, Woodhouse 1997). This has also happened at a time when water demand associated with peri-urbanization is growing rapidly.

The Kruger National Park and several private game parks occupy the eastern portions of the case-study area. Since 1994, eco-tourism has become a major growth industry and the number of such visitors to the Mpumalanga and the Northern Province is growing. The use of land for game tourism has generated debate within the region regarding the potential for community-based

range management models. Many of the participants we spoke with, however, perceive limited personal benefit from the adjacent game parks.

Our CiGIS fieldwork included a diversity of rural produc-tion systems and relations of production. Within the former homelands, project participants involved groups from five loca-tions with various relationships to the Government’s land-reform program (Figure 3).

Cork Village and Nkuna Tribal Authority: This site is located in the former Gazankulu about 40 kilometers west of the Kruger National Park. It is the driest of the study sites and also the poor-est. The area has a history of internal conflict between the chiefs, their patrons, and elements of the liberation movement. There is great land hunger in this area, but there appears to be limited knowledge about the Government’s land-reform program. The area is part of Bushbackridge, which is disputed territory.

Friedenheim Farmworkers: The owner of this farm was a project participant and allowed us to conduct a workshop with a small group of farmworkers. The farm is located near Nelspruit and produces fruit, vegetables, tobacco, and beef.

Masoyi Tribal Authority: Located in the former KaNgwane homeland, the Masoyi claim to have been forcibly removed several times beginning during the Anglo-Boer war. Tribal lands were again expropriated when the Kruger Park was extended westward. The Masoyi chief and elders recently filed a very large land claim to the regional land claims commission seeking to restore their ancestral lands and to obtain compensation for territory that is not returned.

Masizakhe Land Redistribution Project: This land redistri-bution project was established in 1997 when a 28-hectare land parcel was purchased with a Government settlement grant and 80 beneficiaries were resettled. Eight of these 28 hectares can be irrigated. An additional 8 hectares can be used for dryland production. At the present time, the main economic activities are vegetable and poultry production and a service garage.

Figure 3 Figure 4


Sitama Impilo Land Redistribution Project: This redistribution project involves 100 beneficiaries and 80 hectares of high-quality land. Most of the land is arable and available for irrigation. There are three dams and a large house on the property.

Large-Scale Commercial Farmers: Seven white male farmers were interviewed through a process of community network-ing (Figure 4). Some of these participants own more than one farm.

Project Goals, Research Design, and MethodologyFive conceptual questions were developed to provide the research focus and direction to the project. The questions were derived from participatory research in the sub-region and reflect an ongoing interaction between the project team and community participants. The research questions seek to explore:1) The historical geography of forced removals. Forced removals

remain an important part of peoples’ contemporary poverty, future aspirations, and political consciousness. Mapping the historical geography of forced removals is essential for understanding Central Lowveld regional political ecologies and for popular land-reform implementation in the sub-region. Identifying Central Lowveld histories of forced removals is also important to understanding contemporary overlapping land claims in the region.

2) Differential perspectives on land potential. Land users have differing perspectives on both the criteria and location of potential land. Defining land potential is linked, of course, to participant environmental perceptions and how land should be used. This is important because perceptions of “higher,” “medium,” and “lower” land potential help to shape land utilization. Understanding differential perspectives on land potential must include a comparison of “expert” and “local” knowledge.

3) Identifying perspectives on socially appropriate and inappropriate land use. Our concern here is with understanding Central Lowveld land use from the perspective of peoples’ needs and aspirations. This includes identifying and questioning the use of state land, underutilized land, the socially “inappropriate” location of forestry plantations, and other land uses on land with high potential, as well as perspectives on land dedicated to game tourism. We are especially interested in how actual and potential land-reform beneficiaries would prefer to use any land to which they gain access.

4) The politics and power relations that help shape natural resource access, ownership, and use patterns. Central to our work is how regional political ecology can be represented within a GIS. A multimedia GIS enables representations of landscape power and politics to be incorporated by linking peoples’ social histories, material lives, and future aspirations with specific geographic features of place.

5) The identification of areas where land reform should take

place. The purpose here is to use CiGIS for the identification of potential land-reform projects. At present, willing sellers are dictating where land reform can take place and at what price. As a result, the geography of land reform is overly market-driven and not guided by principles of social sustainability.

The research methodology combines the construction of a traditional GIS with the use of participatory methods. Traditional GIS data include hydrology and dams; transportation; hypsogra-phy; land cover and land use; nucleated settlements; land types and land quality; political, recreation, and cadastral boundaries; state and public lands; and forestry plantations. Socially differenti-ated local knowledge was compiled through participatory mental mapping exercises that involved placing tracing paper over GIS-generated topographic map products.

Participant group views on the five conceptual questions were recorded on the tracing paper maps. Pencils and colored mark-ers were used so that each question had a particular color code (e.g., answers about forced removals were drawn in black, while answers about land potential were drawn in green). In this way, community maps were connected to the five conceptual research questions. Corresponding register marks were established on the tracing paper map and the base map, and both the tracing paper map and the base map were given identical labels to aid identifica-tion and orientation if required. The information was digitized and integrated within the CiGIS. The several mental mapping workshops included between five and eight people, and groups of men and women were interviewed separately.

After completion of the mental mapping workshops, partici-patory land-use planning exercises were undertaken. The groups of men and women drew maps that articulated how each group would use any land allocated through land reform. This exercise included participants who had already benefited from the land-reform program (the Masizakhe and Sitama Implilo projects),

Figure 5


participants who had submitted claims but were yet to receive any benefit (the Masoyi), and non-beneficiaries (the Cork/Nkuna project and Friedenheim Farmworkers).

The mental mapping exercises were recorded on tape (and sub-sequently transcribed), and video recordings and photographs were also taken. This information was integrated into a multimedia GIS to provide mutually supportive and complementary data (Figure 5).

Research Results The Historical Geography of Forced Removals “The river used to be the main source of water, then villages were apart. We had our homes, villages, land. I remember where we moved from, the land was fertile.” (Participant in Sitama Impilo men’s workshop)

There is no comprehensive data set in South Africa on the geography of forced removals. Official maps greatly underestimate the geographic extent of forced removals because black settlements were rarely indicated on map products. This is not surprising as it would be illogical for the Apartheid State to publicly document the location of communities that were in the process of being removed from “white” territory. CiGIS participants were willing, and even anxious, to talk about the historical geography of forced removals, although white farmers were reluctant to do so. The mental maps of whites and blacks in the sub-region are compared in Figure 6 and suggest very different perceptions of Central Lowveld landscape history. The forced-removal mental maps of black participants indicate a concentration of perceived removals in the southwest quarter of the case-study area. One explanation for this pattern is that communities evicted from areas north and west of Hazyview were not participants in this project. Previous research found that the entire western half of the case-study area experienced widespread forced removals, particularly in places with good arable land and adequate water supply (Levin et al. 1997). The white-farmer mental maps show a few small areas where blacks were removed and, interestingly, a small area where whites were removed, most likely for homeland expansion.

In Figure 7, mental maps from three workshops with Ma-sizakhe men and Masoyi elders are compared. The maps are inter-esting for a number of reasons. In comparison with the women, the men had a much deeper knowledge of historical landscapes and were able to broadly geo-reference their experiences and memories. The women’s maps were very tightly associated with their more limited activity spaces. The possibility of overlapping claims is also evident in the mental map. This is a problem in many locations where forced removals were widespread and have contributed to the slow pace of land restitution.

Land PotentialLand-types data were obtained from the Agricultural Resource Council of the South African Institute of Soil, Climate, and Water (Figure 8) and were used to establish four land-potential categories. Forty-three percent of the study area is classified as land of “higher” agricultural potential, while 17% is “medium”

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8


potential and 40% is “lower” potential. This representation of “expert” knowledge about land potential emphasizes the fertile river valleys from which Africans tell us they were forcibly dis-placed. It also identifies large portions of land that have a slope constraint for mechanized agriculture but, importantly, could be very attractive for small-holder farmers who use animals and hoes. Local knowledge incorporated in the CiGIS is valuable for identifying viable higher potential land with slopes that are too steep for mechanized large-scale commercial farms but are eminently suitable for small-holder production.

Some peri-urban black settlements are located on higher potential arable land. Interestingly, some of this high-quality land is located to the immediate south of Hazyview where chiefs had previously removed African small-holders to enable members of the tribal authority and local black businessmen to access better land (Weiner et al. 1995). The settlement and land-potential in-formation provides a unique perspective on the spatial patterning of the labor reserve economy.

The extent, location, and quality of public lands are an impor-tant component in the land-reform process. More than two-thirds of public lands in the sub-region are of high quality (Figure 9). Only 24% of state land is of lower potential. Large parcels of higher potential land are used for forestry plantations – a land use that is very unpopular amongst participants in the former homelands (see discussion below). As a result, this information has political implications for the sub-region. Figure 10 compares “expert” and “local” knowledge about land potential. The composite mental maps of higher potential land indicate a pattern similar to that produced with the ARC land-types data. There are, however, some notable differences. For example, black and white local knowledge suggests that the river valleys to the east along the Sabie River are also surrounded by land of higher potential.

Land Use Participants in the former homelands wanted to discuss and map land-use issues because they were angry about the perpetuation

of apartheid geographies in the Central Lowveld. There is over-whelming hostility, for example, toward forestry plantations on high-quality arable land with little slope constraint. The Sitama Impilo women participants wrote on their mental map: “cannot eat from trees” and “can be more appropriately used to produce food” (Figure 11). The women from the former Gazankulu home-land agree and also expressed concern about the Kruger National Park (Figure 12). The Park is only a few kilometers away, yet local residents do not perceive any tangible benefits. These women also complained about water supply and told us they believed that the Sabie River had been deliberately stocked with crocodiles to keep them away from the water as it flows toward the parks. A young woman was recently killed in a crocodile attack.

Participants from the former homelands also drew their own land-use plans. The Sitama Impilo women (Figure 13) produced a sophisticated land-use plan that included farming, grazing, irrigation, farm labor housing, a school, and a nursery. The men (Figure 14) devoted a large portion of their land to

Figure 9 Figure 10

Figure 11


vegetable and fruit production, while also allocating land for tobacco production and barns. These, and other participatory land-use maps, suggest that the demand for land is for multiple purposes, including housing, food production for local consump-tion, agricultural production for sale, shops for the community, and tourism. In the former Gazankulu (the Cork/Nkuna Tribal Authority), men also wanted to use land for game tourism, while the women were more concerned about food production. The Masizakhe men located a hotel and gas station on their property, while the Masoyi men allocated land for a game reserve, park, and day-care center. Overall, women devoted more land for food production than did men, but both groups had multiple livelihoods embedded in their plans. These land-use maps send a very clear message to planners of land reform in South Africa that beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries view themselves as worker-peasants and not one or the other as so many planners try to impose. The land-use maps are a reflection of the material relations of production and reproduction of the participants as well as their dreams and aspirations.

Land Reform Toward the end of the mental mapping workshops, we asked participants where they felt land reform should take place. The Masizakhe men and Masoyi elders created mental maps about where land reform should take place and had strong opinions about how the land should be used (Figures 15 and 16). For example, the Masizakhe men told us that, “The first attempt should be to take out the trees and pines and make that land available. There is a lot of high potential flat land, which could be used. The bananas and other foods which are produced should be left alone.” This acceptance of large-scale commercial fruit and vegetable production and the objections to industrial forestry is interesting and important. The Masizakhe women also had strong feelings about the need for land reform. In their workshop, one woman summarized as follows: “We want farming land and need fencing to protect crops from animals. We need grazing land for

Figure 12

Figure 13

Figure 14

Figure 15


cattle … [and] a separate place for cultivation.” The Masoyi elders and Masizakhe men agreed that a signifi-

cant quantity of land must be returned to the people who lived there previously and were forced to leave. Once again, we were told how fundamental land is for them. For many residents of the former homelands, their ancestral lands remain in (former) white territory. Land is critical for their social reproduction and their prospects for individual, household, and community wealth creation. Some participants expressed a preference for land close to where they currently live. This is a logical preference for these aspiring worker-peasants. There is also insistence that land reform must ensure greater access to water for residential and agricultural uses.

A composite land-reform mental map suggests that percep-tions by white farmers and by black women of “where land reform should take place” are much more modest when compared with black male participants (Figure 17). The Sitama Impilo men drew the most ambitious map in terms of territorial extent. The men in general drew maps that reflected their desire to see a compre-hensive and extensive redistribution of natural resources. White farmers are much less enthusiastic about land reform and some became tense in interviews when land reform was discussed. They talked openly about the deteriorating farm security situation and were clearly concerned. Large-scale commercial farmers and their families have been attacked, in some cases without theft, suggest-ing a political dimension to some of the violence.

Summary CiGIS multimedia information about this “neo-apartheid land-scape” (Pickles and Weiner 1991) is useful for unpacking some critical elements of Central Lowveld political ecology. Combin-ing conventional “scientific” data with local understandings of land potential considerably improved our understanding of the multiple dimensions of the agro-ecological potential of the sub-region. The “expert” view on land potential, for example, does not identify areas of higher potential land adjacent to some perennial river valleys in the eastern half of the case-study area. African

people once inhabited these valleys and their ancestral territories remain there. The elders in particular knew where these more fertile soils were located.

The social and spatial consequences of forced removals are readily visible in the maps and narratives, along with the spatial extent of peri-urbanization in the former homelands. The mental maps of forced removals represent a complex pattern of overlap-ping land claims and important differences between what white farmers and bantustan residents perceive as local landscape history. Community land claims also point to a re-energized Chieftancy and Tribal Authority. This political reality will have a significant impact on how land is redistributed, who the primary beneficiaries will be, and the nature of gender relations in the countryside.

The use of higher potential land for exotic forestry planta-tions and residential housing for displaced blacks are two ongo-ing Grand Apartheid land-use contradictions. High potential arable land is scarce in South Africa, and malnutrition is high. Approximately 15% of the total national land area is suitable for dryland or irrigated agricultural production. This is one reason why participants agree that higher potential arable land needs to be preserved and used wisely. The CiGIS identified land that is potentially underutilized and suitable for the implementation of land reform.

This research also identified some important and politically sensitive land-use ownership and land-control issues. The extent and location of public land in the sub-region, and the perception that some of this land is inappropriately used for forestry plan-tations, is a valuable finding. This is another demonstration of how CiGIS can help in the identification of specific land-reform projects (e.g., in the forestland immediately to the northwest of the town of White River). Black men and women thought this land could be more effectively used for intensive small-holder production. The Masizakhe women identified this territory as underutilized land owned by an absentee landowner on which they would like to grow vegetables for domestic consumption and local markets.

A final summary point concerns the complex issue of scale.

Figure 16 Figure 17


Most of the mental maps presented in this article are community cultural geographies of a sub-region using a base map scale of 1:50,000. More detailed and localized maps at 1:24,000 were also used in the workshops. When constructing a CiGIS, it is important to consider how scale impacts the questions asked and how individuals and communities respond. Seeking greater carto-graphic accuracy is not necessarily a requirement for CiGIS, even though it can be achieved through the use of Global Positioning System transect walks. This is premised, however, on having ac-cess to the territory being investigated, which was a considerable problem in our fieldwork

ConclusionThe growth of geo-spatial technologies is rapidly transforming how “earth” and “environment” are visualized, represented, and understood. Most geographic information systems include some spatial environmental data, and natural resource GIS applica-tions continue to grow in importance and impact. It is, therefore, noteworthy that GIS and Society research and writing are rather silent on the interplay between GIS, environment, and society. Geographic information systems invariably produce representa-tions of nature that privilege conventional forms of “scientific” spatial information, while ignoring valuable local knowledge. Lo-cal and regional natural resource politics and representations of socially produced landscapes are largely ignored in contemporary GIS applications.

This article examines the role that GIS plays in how people view, exploit, and manage their physical resource base. The re-search contributes to the growing GIS and Society literature and offers insight gained from the implementation of a participa-tory GIS in South Africa. The Central Lowveld CiGIS explored landscape politics and struggles through the inclusion of socially differentiated community spatial stories and cognitive maps in a GIS to produce representations of local and regional political ecologies. Non-hegemonic ways of knowing and exploiting nature and environment were incorporated into the multimedia GIS.

The field-based research provided some salutary lessons. Not the least of these was how to address the complexities of undertaking this project when we live and work at a considerable distance from the communities. The Central Lowveld participa-tory research was certainly welcomed by former homeland resi-dents who still struggle for more “socially appropriate land use” (Weiner et al. 1995). However, the production of a CiGIS that is genuinely incorporated into local civil society requires continual contact between the research team and community participants. Map-making and spatial analysis should continuously involve community participants in the identification of community issues and in the collection, organization, and analysis of the resulting GIS database. In an endeavor to link our academic research with local environmental struggles, we sought to locate the Central Lowveld CiGIS within the Premier’s Office of Mapumalanga Province. Several productive meetings were held and a plan of ac-tion was drafted. Since then, however, the project team personnel have dispersed to the private sector and state institutions, and the

National Department of Land Affairs has fractured and restruc-tured. Despite the considerable local interest and excitement in the project, we are less than optimistic that this research will generate a lasting CiGIS presence, at least in the short term.

Nonetheless, the research demonstrates the potential utility of a multimedia GIS system for participatory land-reform plan-ning and project identification. The richness of the peoples’ maps produced and the enthusiastic community-driven ideas for GIS spatial analysis must, of course, be contrasted with the difficulties of implementing the system for local/regional planning and land reform. The type of CiGIS produced will ultimately be deter-mined by the nature of the participatory process employed, place politics, and the relationships with local “development” institu-tions. In South Africa, our intention was to support a process of popular participation that was connected to existing organs of civil society and committed to grassroots concerns about transcending neo-apartheid geographies. In this we were successful, but the connection to local policy making and project identification was difficult and further evidence that CiGIS production and use is locally dependent (Craig et al. 2002). The ability for CiGIS to en-gage in popular spatial initiatives at the local level will, over time, determine whether participatory geographic information systems are an “opportunity or an oxymoron” (Abbot et al. 1998).

About the Authors

Daniel Weiner is Professor of Geography in the Department of Geology and Geography and Director of the Office of International Programs at West Virginia University.

Corresponding Address:Department of Geology and GeographyWest Virginia UniversityP.O. Box 6300, 425 White HallMorgantown, West Virginia [email protected] and

Trevor Harris is Eberly Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia University.

Corresponding Address:Department of Geology and GeographyWest Virginia UniversityP.O. Box 6300, 425 White HallMorgantown, West Virginia [email protected]

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant # SBR-951511: “Integrating Regional Political Ecology and GIS for Rural Reconstruction in the South African Lowveld.” NCGIA Initiative # 19 and the West Virginia University Regional Research Institute also supported the project. In South Africa,


Indran Naidoo, Richard Levin and Rachel Masango (formerly) of the Department of Land Affairs provided critical institutional and logistical support. Regina Dhlamini of Nelspruit was an ef-fective interpreter, and Edward Makhanya (University of Zulu-land) helped set-up some of the field visits. Wendy Geary (West Virginia University), Ishmail Mahiri (Kenyatta University), and Heidi van Deventer and Lloyd Mdakane (South Africa) were highly valued members of the research team. They all contributed in important ways to this research. Thanks also to Tim Warner of West Virginia University who helped interpret land-types data for the land-potential classification. An early draft of this article was presented at GISOC’99 An International Conference on Geo-graphic Information and Society, The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, June 1999.


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Footnotes

1 Macdevette et al. (1999:914) reported that white per capita incomes were 12.3 times higher than for blacks and that over 40% of the total population and half of all households live below the “minimum standard of living.” They also sug-gested that inequality between racial groups is increasing. See Cox et al. (2002) for a useful analysis of contemporary labor migration patterns and historical changes.

2 An example of this is the Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) that has become important for regional planning and fund-ing for specific projects in South Africa. The adoption of SDI was facilitated by GIS maps that modeled Provincial growth strategies and their likely spatial impacts (CSIR 1997). SDI in South Africa is a classic growth-pole regional development strategy.

URISA Journal • Rugg 75

URISA Journal • Rugg 75

A Framework for the Use of Geographic Information in Participatory Community Planning and

DevelopmentRobert D. Rugg

Abstract: A group of participants in a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop developed a framework for public participation in the use of geographic information. This article presents the framework and considers its usefulness in the context of two examples of urban indicators projects. Three questions are addressed: 1) Is the framework useful within which to con-sider and compare experiences among geographically based community planning projects in different urban areas? 2) Does the framework raise questions in relation to particular projects that might not otherwise be asked? and 3) Are there important issues in geographically based community planning and development that are not addressed by the framework? The author concludes that: 1) it has been possible to identify elements of the selected example projects that are present or absent, stronger or weaker, when viewed through the filter of this framework; 2) important issues surrounding the use of urban indicators in community planning may be overlooked, which the framework can help identify; and 3) the main issue not addressed by the framework is the relationship between the use of specifically geographic information and information in general.

IntroductionIn December 2001, the National Science Foundation and the European Science Foundation jointly sponsored a workshop titled “Access and Participatory Approaches in Using Geographic Information” in Spoleto, Italy. At this workshop, a group of par-ticipants1 developed a draft framework for comparative analysis of participatory geographic information systems (GIS) (Figure 1). The framework considers both the conditions for and the impacts of geographic information in community planning. This article describes the “Spoleto framework,” using the examples of the Richmond Neighborhood Indicators (RNI) project and a sustainability indicators project in Devens, Massachusetts. These examples can be used to illustrate the framework and its potential applicability to comparative analysis of local planning projects that make use of geographic information. The following questions may be posed with regard to the framework: 1) Is it a useful frame-work within which to consider and compare experiences among geographically based community planning projects in different urban areas? 2) Does it raise questions in relation to particular projects that might not otherwise be asked? and 3) Are there im-portant issues in geographically based community planning and development that are not addressed by the framework?

Richmond Neighborhood Indicators ProjectIn 1998, the Richmond office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) initiated the development of the RNI project under a contract to the Department of Urban Studies and Plan-

ning at Virginia Commonwealth University. LISC is a non-profit organization based in New York City that provides funding and services to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and other non-profit community development organizations.

The RNI project seeks to develop a capability for the suc-cessful integration of geographic information into an ongoing long-term process of participatory community planning. The ba-sic objectives of the RNI project include: a) to provide detailed, block-level indicators of community conditions that can be used to establish baseline measurements and subsequently to measure the impact of community investments, including those sponsored by LISC, the City of Richmond, and others; b) to develop models of the causes of current conditions and the likely effects of inter-ventions; and c) to encourage participation by local neighborhood residents and organizations in the process of identifying relevant indicators and using them as an effective basis for neighborhood planning (Accordino and Rugg 1999).

Sustainability Indicators In Devens, MassachusettsA recent issue of Planners’ Casebook (Hollander 2002) described the use of indicators for community planning in Devens, Mas-sachusetts. Planners’ Casebook is a publication of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). The approach used in Devens followed a familiar planning process. The indicators were community-wide, not geographically distributed, but the example is included because it illustrates the use of indicator data (which could be geographic) in the planning process. Also, as a result of its publication by the AICP, the process used in Devens may be

76 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003 URISA Journal • Rugg 77

emulated by many professional planners in other localities.Planners in Devens first defined the goal of “sustainability”

with input from “several planning studies, a charrette, and pub-lished regulations” (Hollander 2002:3). A staff planner prepared a preliminary report including the definition. The next step in the process was to select a set of issues and state them as ques-tions (e.g., “Is the economy healthy?”). The selection of issues was again done by a staff member using a literature review and the staff ’s knowledge of community concerns. A third step was to construct indicators that would provide an empirical basis for answering the questions (e.g., unemployment rate as a measure of how healthy the economy is). For each indicator, a certain value was specified as the dividing line between whether the answer would be “yes” or “no.” (Mixed “yes” and “no” results for a group of related indicators would result in an answer of “maybe”.) A fourth step was to evaluate the indicators according to a number of criteria found in the literature. One important consideration for the Devens planners was the criterion of “attractiveness to the media.” A public meeting was held so that citizens could participate in evaluating the indicators, but little useful feedback was obtained, so the set of indicators was refined by the planning staff. Finally, indicator data were collected and the results pub-lished. Based on these findings, local planners recommended that the community develop an “eco-industrial park,” coincidentally, “a tool with which Devens Planning Director Peter Lowitt had extensive experience” (Hollander 2002:5). One is tempted to observe that staff bias may have played a major role in the selec-tion of indicators, which in turn determined what the results and recommended action would be.

Spoleto FrameworkThe “Spoleto framework” emphasizes the intermediary role of geographic information and its interpretation in processes that basically involve policy makers addressing problems affecting in-dividuals living in communities. Within this framework there is an infrastructure of geographic information that may or may not be well understood by policy makers or the affected individuals. The infrastructure itself may help identify or provide informa-tion about neighborhood problems and their solutions. It may include predictive models or scenario-building techniques that can help forecast the effects of policy decisions on the quality of life of urban residents. The geographic information infrastruc-ture includes language that may require a role for a geographic information “facilitator” to help with communication between policy makers and communities about local conditions and op-portunities, viewed geographically.

The Spoleto group that proposed this framework saw it as a way of grouping and generalizing about the otherwise disparate case studies of experiences with urban indicators in various Ameri-can cities. This article reviews the experience of the RNI and the Devens project in light of this framework as a way to explore the usefulness of the framework in organizing thinking about com-munity planning based on geographic information.

Individuals in CommunitiesThis part of the framework illustrates that communities are made up of individual residents interacting with one another as well as with another group labeled “policy makers.” This is an idealized view of the situation. In practice, communities are represented partially and unevenly by a variety of community organizations.

Fig. 1. Draft Framework for Participatory GIS


In particular for the RNI project, the main client organizations consist of Community Development Corporations. Some CDCs are based in particular neighborhoods; others have city-wide or regional target areas. CDCs tend to focus on housing needs and therefore to draw much of their input from property owners, developers, and funding organizations including local, state, and federal government agencies; they may not always represent the interests of all the residents of a given neighborhood. The situ-ation in Richmond fits the characterization as “complex social differentiation within participant communities” (Craig et al. 2001:12).

The case study of the Devens project sheds little light on the community and less on its interaction with geographic informa-tion or decision making. An important result of the project was that “planners now have a benchmark to measure future progress” (Hollander 2002:1). Clearly the planning staff is both the pro-ducer and the consumer of indicator data in this case.

There is, of course, rich literature on the subject of individuals and their relationships to communities having little or nothing to do with the topic of geographic information (see, e.g., Kretzmann and McKnight 1993, Craig et al. 2001). It is not the intent of this article to review that literature, only to note that it is a key aspect to be considered when investigating the relationship between community planning and geographic information.

Policy MakersAs with individuals in communities, there is also rich and di-verse literature devoted to urban organizational theory, policy development, and decision making. Again, it is not the purpose of this article to review that literature, only to point out that the proposed framework suggests that it is a key subject to be considered when evaluating the use of geographic information in decision-making.

Policy makers related to the RNI project include the City of Richmond and surrounding local jurisdictions, state and federal governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations including Richmond Local Initiatives Support Corporation. The latter are organized into the Richmond Community Development Associa-tion, a trade association for non-profit housing organizations.

Early in the process of developing the RNI, responsible individuals from many of these organizations were invited to participate on an ad hoc advisory committee to help identify is-sues and select indicators to be included. Represented were Elder Homes Corporation, Highland Park Restoration and Preserva-tion Program, Interfaith Housing Corporation, the Richmond Better Housing Coalition, Richmond Habitat for Humanity, Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, Southside Com-munity Development Corporation, the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and the City of Richmond (Deputy City Manager and representatives from the departments of Community Development and Police, and Richmond Public Schools), as well as LISC and Virginia Com-monwealth University (VCU).

By fortuitous coincidence, the Richmond City Council decided to launch a program called “Neighborhoods in Bloom” just as the RNI project was getting underway. The RNI advisory committee became a forum for coordinating the selection of indicators that could be used both by LISC and by the city for Neighborhoods in Bloom. Under this program, the city used indicators to select neighborhoods for focused investments of resources ranging from police protection to landscaping. Cur-rently, the same indicators are being used to measure the success of Neighborhoods in Bloom. Richmond LISC and the city have freely exchanged data from the beginning of the RNI project through the current work on the Neighborhoods in Bloom program evaluation.

Hollander described the results of the Devens project this way: “Few agencies outside of the planning department…have integrated sustainable indicators into their long-term planning processes” (2002:7). According to this account, it appears that the indicators project there was undertaken somewhat in isolation from other administrative branches of the local government, and perhaps without any involvement on the part of the legislative branch.

ProblemsNeighborhood indicators can be used in a variety of ways with respect to neighborhood problems. They may be used to discover problems that were not previously perceived or to document the existence of perceived problems. They may be used as “report cards” (see, e.g., Maclaren 1996:190) to assess the current status of problems and whether the situation is getting better or worse over time. They may be used for analysis of the causes and ef-fects of problems (Maclaren 1996:193-194, Accordino and Johnson 2000). They may be used to develop scenarios about various possible future situations under various assumptions or to predict the effects of proposed actions. They may also be used in the comparison of alternatives and the selection of a preferred alternative. The framework illustrates these uses in terms of the problems themselves and the relationships between problems and communities on the one hand and between problems and policy makers on the other hand. The framework also shows a recipro-cal relationship with the geographic information infrastructure, which may be used to help define problems, analyze them, and develop proposed solutions.

There are many neighborhood problems to which geographic indicators can be usefully applied. Earlier, we mentioned the Neighborhoods in Bloom program, which is a large and multi-faceted effort involving the whole range of city services. Two other examples are more localized and specific. The CDC for the Highland Park neighborhood in Richmond is working on an innovative program to provide good quality rental housing as an alternative to the traditional emphasis on subsidizing first-time home buyers. The CDC for the Oregon Hill neighborhood is concerned with gentrification. The Oregon Hill Home Improve-ment Corporation is contemplating a concept of making profits on gentrification in order to provide more housing assistance to


lower income neighborhood residents. The RNI project did not provide the creative inspiration for either of these local initiatives, but geographic information from the project was used to help define the nature of the problem in each case.

Problems in Devens were centered on the Devens Enterprise Zone, which was created as the result of an army base closure. The history of how the site was formerly used, combined with the exodus of jobs, led to the twin concerns of economic and environmental sustainability as the problems of interest there.

Geographic Information InfrastructureA persistent problem in the neighborhood indicators movement is the lack of a coherent and consistent geographic information infrastructure. Commonly used sources of information include administrative data from municipalities, employment data main-tained by state governments, and census data. Obtaining all the relevant data, aggregating them by block and by neighborhood to produce useful indicators, and updating the information on a routine basis are major tasks. There is typically no one organiza-tion that has the creation and maintenance of infrastructure as its mission, although there are numerous organizations that can benefit from the data once they are in place. Geographic informa-tion functions economically as a public good in this sense.

Although expensive to develop and maintain, data by them-selves are not sufficient. Some authors appear to equate data with indicators and indicators with the information needed to provide planning support in urban neighborhoods. Professional planners have developed the more realistic concept of “planning support systems,” which are built upon geographic databases but also include software to model “Actors, Activities, Flows, Investments, Facilities, Regulations, Rights, Issues, Forces, Opportunities, and Constraints” (Hopkins 2001:87).

One specific but important concern in the development of the infrastructure is that of web access. There are numerous is-sues associated with this concern, including technical problems, privacy and intellectual property issues, as well as social aspects of accessibility, empowerment, and democratization with regard to the use of geographic information (see Carver 2001).

The RNI project has benefited from the vision and persever-ance of Richmond LISC. That organization understood from the beginning that providing indicator data must be an ongoing process in order to be useful. LISC has renewed funding for the project each year since 1998, even though at times the hoped-for benefits have not been immediately apparent. After a lengthy legal discussion between LISC headquarters and the VCU legal staff, it was finally agreed that the indicators data would be provided freely to governmental and non-profit organizations, and would be provided to private entities only with the mutual consent of both parties.

It is hoped that the Devens project will continue. If it was used to help justify the creation of an eco-industrial park and if the park has been developed, it will be important to know whether the expected benefits can be documented by the same set of indicators.

Often, in such cases, there is no incentive for the planners who promoted a project to go back, afterwards, and try to determine whether the expected benefits were achieved.

Geographic Information LanguageThe Spoleto group conceived of a geographic information lan-guage in the broad sense of concepts and vocabulary through which geographic information constituents – individuals, com-munities, and policy makers – understand and make use of infor-mation provided by the geographic information infrastructure. Such communication is a two-way street because the infrastructure must somehow be informed of the information needs of its con-stituents, and those needs must be articulated in ways that are technically feasible for the infrastructure to support. Similarly, constituents must have a clear understanding of the information that is, and is not, provided by the infrastructure, and how to use the information effectively.

There is only a clue to this aspect of the Devens project, in the comment about the lack of useful feedback from the public meet-ing held to evaluate the proposed set of indicators. It seems obvi-ous that members of the public, even if they could be persuaded to attend such a meeting, would defer to planning professionals whom they would perceive to be more knowledgeable, both about the indicators themselves and about the criteria presented by these same experts as a basis for evaluating the indicators.

With regard to the RNI project, the development of geo-graphic information language is very much a work in progress. During the first year of the project, community organizations did participate actively in the selection of indicators to be obtained. During the same year, all of the LISC staff were given GIS soft-ware training. Our naïve assumption was that the role of VCU faculty and students would diminish over time, the LISC staff would learn to use the system, and they would work directly with CDCs to develop community plans based on the newly available set of indicators. As it turned out, the expensive software training was immediately forgotten. LISC has requested ongoing support from VCU planning interns who spend a fixed number of hours per week in the LISC office, operating the system and handling requests for assistance from CDCs. The planned next step (after LISC staff became fluent in the geographic information language) was to go out to CDCs and other community organizations and provide the same kind of training to them, eventually decentral-izing the infrastructure to make it locally available for direct use by each CDC in its own neighborhood or target area. That has become a far-off and now admittedly an unattainable dream.

Meanwhile, the framework provides a partial answer in the role of a geographic information facilitator.

Geographic Information FacilitatorThe Spoleto group conceived of the role of geographic infor-mation facilitator as a necessary bridge between the geographic information infrastructure and the problems confronting commu-nities and policy makers. Perhaps in an ideal future, the concept


of “naïve geography” as applied to software development will reduce the need for such an intermediary, as may improvements in geographic education of the general public. For the present, there is an inevitable gap between the geographic information infrastructure and those who know how to develop and use it, and the constituents who stand to gain the most from its use. The term “facilitator” implies that those with expertise should be helpful, but not try to set the agenda for the identification and resolution of community problems.

Specifically for the RNI, the role of facilitator is being played by three graduate students in the VCU planning program, each working about 10 hours a week. The students are responsible for collecting and processing geographic data and for responding to requests for information from community organizations. A por-tion of their time each week is spent at the LISC office in order to provide LISC with more in-house expertise. Experience has shown that a passive role is not sufficient. There have been a number of presentations to the LISC board and individual CDCs over the past three years. These have generated some requests for specific data items, but to date there is little active involvement of the project team in local neighborhood planning activities and only limited use of the geographic information to support such activities. Recently, the students have initiated a series of meetings with CDCs in order to describe the information resources available and to listen to what the needs are as perceived by these organizations. They are pursu-ing the model described by Smith and Craglia as an “advocacy” approach, “in which specialists act not just as ‘neutral technicians, but actively seek to exploit their knowledge for the benefit of the communities they are responsible for or are embedded within” (2001:6). A similar role is proposed by Niles and Hanson (2001) with respect to helping individuals in communities make the best use of available web-based geographic information.

Conclusion and RecommendationsThe questions to be addressed include: 1) Is this a useful frame-work within which to consider and compare experiences among projects in different urban areas? 2) What are the specific strengths and weaknesses of the example projects when viewed in this con-text? and 3) Are there important issues in neighborhood planning and development that are not addressed by this framework?

Is the framework useful? The purpose envisioned for the framework was to provide a basis for comparative analysis of the then-mostly-anecdotal evidence from individual case studies of geographically based community planning projects and activi-ties. In this article, it has been possible to identify elements that are present or absent, stronger or weaker, in the examples from Richmond and Devens, when viewed through the filter of this framework. Although there are many more examples that need to be considered, at least tentatively one could say that the framework seems to be useful in serving this purpose.

What questions does the framework raise that might not otherwise be asked? The Devens project is one of many that ap-pear to have been undertaken in a narrow context, starting with

the assumption that having indicators is a good thing, and ending with the conclusion that it is good to be able to measure whether or not progress is being made according to these indicators and that the primary client for the effort was the planners in charge of the project. Important questions do exist with regard to how problems are defined, the role of individuals and communities in deciding which indicators to use and how, the influence or lack of influence of indicator data in policy formulation and decision making, whether a project makes specific use of geographic infor-mation and how that information relates to other information, the role of experts as facilitators, to cite just a few. These are some of the issues that might have been addressed if the author of the Devens case study had such a framework in mind.

Are there important issues not addressed by this framework? In discussing “Public Participation Geographic Information Science” futures, Craig et al. (2001) identified the following trends: increasing use of the Internet, social differentiation within communities, the use of other technologies besides GIS, empowerment and disempowerment, and the democratization of spatial decision making. The issues of social differentiation, empowerment, and democratization of decision making all fall within the scope of the policy makers and communities parts of the framework.

The trend toward increasing use of the Internet was initially assumed by American participants at the Spoleto workshop, but surprisingly it was not accepted as a given by the European participants, who noted that cell phone technology is progress-ing rapidly and beginning to serve some of the same functions provided in the United States by the Internet. Cell phone use is growing rapidly in every part of the world, including developing countries (see Craglia and Masser 2001). It is conceivable that the geographic information infrastructure of the future may not be web-based but cell-based. This is not an inherent limitation of the framework because the concept of infrastructure accommodates both modalities as well as any future alternative.

The trend noted by Craig et al. of a future emphasis on non-GIS technologies is something outside the scope of the Spoleto Framework. It could be included with a minor revision, replacing geographic information infrastructure with informa-tion infrastructure in general, of which geographic information is one component. Another approach is suggested by De Man (2001:4), who sees “other information sources” as being provided completely outside the realm of a “public participation geographic information system.” Either way, such a change would accom-modate the non-geographic information aspect of examples such as the Devens project, and invite comparison between community planning projects that include a geographic information compo-nent and those that do not.

80 URISA Journal • Vol. 15, APA II • 2003

About the Author

Robert D. Rugg is Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he has taught since 1974. He earned an M.A. in geography at the Univer-sity of Chicago and a Ph.D. in geography at the University of Ottawa. He is a charter member of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Certified Plan-ners. His recent research concerns standards for geographic information and the use of neighborhood indicators in local and international urban planning.

Corresponding Address:Department of Urban Studies and PlanningVirginia Commonwealth UniversityRichmond VA 23284-2008 [email protected]

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by grants from the National Sci-ence Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.


References

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Footnotes

1 Members of this “public access” break-out group included: Mario Boffi (Italy); Erik de Man (Netherlands); Steve Carver (United Kingdom); Christina Drew, Melinda Laituri, Mar-grete Merrick, Laxmi Ramasubbramanian, and Robert Rugg (United States); and Franco Vico (Italy). The interpretation of the details of the framework is the author’s own and may not accurately reflect the views of other workshop partici-


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