Geographic information systems in local government planning : a review of current and potential applications

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a new technological innovation that is of great importance to local government planning. This thesis investigates whether, and to what extent, planners should be involved in GIS. It also tries to determine what local government planners can do with GIS, and what they will be able to do with it in the future. GIS is defined and its relevance to local government planning is discussed. Reviews of applications in the fields of comprehensive planning, land use planning, economic development planning, environmental planning, and transportation planning are presented. Several short systems descriptions were constructed from information collected by use of a mail survey and telephone interviews. This thesis concludes that GIS can be, and has been, applied to all of the fields of planning discussed in the application review. GIS is of great importance to planning and planners should become more involved in its development. Further development of applications is needed to make use of the full potential of this technology. At this point, only a few local governments can be considered sophisticated GIS users. In the future, the know-how on GIS applications will be more evenly distributed. Database integration, automation, the further development of spatial analysis techniques, a more extensive use of modeling, and the use of digital maps as legal documents can be expected to be areas of future development in applying the GIS technology to local government planning.