Exploring the Complexities of Community Engaged GIS

Abstract

Participatory GIS projects are increasingly popular in urban governance. This paper explores the complexities of a community involved pilot project that was implemented in the town of Verona, Wisconsin and critically examines their GIS (Geographic Information Systems) practices and the support structures that played an important role in facilitating GIS use. The paper first traces the evolution of the project, and the role of the various actors in shaping it and then shows that relations between key institutions and actors played a crucial role in shaping the pilot project. While inherently supportive, these actors occupied a dominant power position, setting a top down tone to the project from its onset. As such, the project simultaneously enhanced and constricted the process of participation and spatial knowledge production of the community residents.

HCI-Evaluation of the GeoCitizen-reporting App for citizen participation in spatial planning and community management among members of marginalized communities in Cali, Colombia

“…However, the increasing use of geoweb technologies within PPGIS and community management projects has revealed critical issues that must be addressed for a comprehensive assessment of whether or not these technologies lead to inclusion or further exclusion of members of marginalized communities who should be empowered to engage in better management of their living environments (Elwood & Leszczynski, 2013;Haklay, 2013;Mukherjee & Ghose, 2012;Sui et al, 2013). Ethical issues such as the privacy of shared (locational) data and abusive user behaviour (Ashley et al, 2009;Torrens, 2010), the shortcomings of geo-technologies in representing the perspectives of minority and vulnerable groups (Pfeffer et al, 2015), as well as the issue of ownership of (local) knowledge mapped through crowd-sourced data (McCall, 2012) have to be considered when designing geospatial web applications for a PPGIS environment.…”

“…The advent of the geospatial web in recent years (Atzmanstorfer & Blaschke, 2013;Mukherjee, 2012;Pfeffer et al, 2015) has not only made geoweb technologies available to a mass public of non-expert users, but has also altered the requirements and parameters of HCI and usability, especially within PPGIS projects and community-engagement activities. Nowadays, geoweb technologies aim at reaching out to the general public by providing basic applications for simple tasks, instead of combining complex functionalities in expert GIS desktop systems (Haklay & Chao Li, 2010;Mittlböck et al, 2012;Skarlatidou et al, 2013).…”

Development and use of a geoinformation system for revealing urban problems

“…The applied nature of certain studies limits the use of the authors' experience whenever it concerns other areas and different initial conditions. This can be observed in [14], which examines the complexity of public involvement in a pilot project that was implemented for a small town in the U.S.A. Another study [15] is even more localized. It substantiates the relevance of choosing the city of Milwaukee (U.S.A.) to evaluate the effectiveness of using a GIS by community organizations in administering the city.…”

“…However, the GIS in the studies of these processes is used by a very limited number (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) of researchers, who are cited, in particular, in [20][21][22]. Thus, the devised GIS is intended to be included into analyzing urban processes.…”

Geo-Technologies for Spatial Knowledge: Challenges for Inclusive and Sustainable Urban Development

“…Locally, we see a shift from using geo-technologies for managerial and operational purposes (Baud et al 2014a ) towards wider governance processes (Lin 2013 ). GIS practices have expanded towards web mapping, participatory GIS (PGIS), VGI, crowdsourcing, and online services (McCall and Dunn 2012 ;Mukherjee and Ghose 2012 ;Elwood and Leszczynski 2013 ;Haklay Adapted from Pfeffer et al ( 2013 ) 2013 ). Local government's geo-technology practices are also infl uenced by policies of the national government and other national and international actors, including the industry and private sector.…”