GIS and public engagement: ‘Geo-spatial support’ and the space of flows

Keywords: information, network society, public participation GIS, local planning
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

The geographic information systems (GIS) in society literature notes a lack of engagement in public participation GIS (PPGIS); likewise, overall paths to meaningful public engagement impacting local planning are also very limited. Space, defined as relations between elements, has become a flow in local planning as material relations are managed in fast information networks dominating the elements necessary to connect essential infrastructure to fast development projects. While an analogue local sovereignty is maintained, planners, city staff, and elected officials are left with largely perfunctory roles in molding material outcomes or using input. Ethnographic data from a medium-sized California city indicates that information flows and meaningful public engagement, including through GIS, are limited by the importance and social meaning of different types of information and knowledge. This article considers these results through Manuel Castells’ theory of the network society and the space of flows. The importance of information in local planning stems from service firms and expert knowledge producers—e.g. consulting firms, professional organizations, university research—particularly the applied knowledge connected to large urban infrastructure central to urban planning. In this context, GIS serves as a centralized coordinator of utility and land use information (called ‘geo-spatial support’ by informants), mobilizing material things in space and creating networks of information technology that connect local planning to the larger network. Through these connections information flows from outside the bounds of local sovereignty virtually dominate local planning.