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The roles of GIS in planning : a critical appraisal of the technology for urban and regional planning

University of British Columbia

The proliferation of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) in the planning profession has been phenomenal in recent years. However, it is not clear what roles GIS can play in the today's planning context. This thesis sets out to explore this topic through the investigation of the nature of planning, the history of computer application in planning, the GIS technology itself, and half a dozen real-life GIS applications. On the "demand" side, the literature review shows that today's planning is highly political in nature, with technical concerns having receded to a secondary place of importance. As a result, the use of information in the profession is very much communicative, shifting the emphasis from the analytical use of information to a more presentational use of information. While on the "supply" side, the study of the technology itself reveals that GIS is a hybrid technology that is the marriage of electronic mapping, database technology, and computer modeling. It has the technological potential to be customized to serve different ends in planning. There is an apparently good match between planning's use of information and GIS's functionality, suggesting that there is considerable potential in the application of the technology to the profession. Unfortunately, the current theory about GIS application in planning focuses rather narrowly on the technical use of the technology and turns a blind eye on the technology's capability to aid communicative planning. This thesis points out that the current theory on GIS's application in planning is inadequate for the profession to take full advantage of the technology. It concludes that GIS can serve all three major information processing functions: information presentation, information management, and information analysis, and recommends more presentationoriented use of the technology in planning.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-02-06

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4219

Planning

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace