Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems - Chapter 5 pdf

Mapping Philadelphia’sneighbourhoods Liza Casey and Tom Pederson Since 1994, the City of Philadelphia has been working to bring GIS technol-ogy to the level of neighbourhood planners, ho

Mapping Philadelphia’s

neighbourhoods

Liza Casey and Tom Pederson

Since 1994, the City of Philadelphia has been working to bring GIS technol-ogy to the level of neighbourhood planners, hoping to initiate with them a PPGIS Although it has been successful in generating enthusiasm for the appli-cability of GIS for this purpose, use of the technology in the neighbourhoods

is still minimal A 1995 paper by these authors documented the project with particular focus on the limits of existing mapping techniques and symbol-ogy for mapping urban neighbourhood environments This paper documents the progress of the City’s continued efforts to give neighbourhood plan-ners access to its GIS resources and the impact of new technologies on that effort Our finding is that although the City may now be in a much better position to distribute its GIS data through less expensive, easier to use inter-faces that can effectively distribute public records, the difficulties of building effective PPGIS in urban neighbourhoods still exist

The City of Philadelphia, which was literally on the verge of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, was rejuvenated under the leadership of Mayor Ed Rendell The downtown has been revitalized The new convention center is booked for years Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross and the Liberty Bell are being more effectively promoted and Philadelphia is becoming a true destination city – even attracting the Republican National Convention in 2000

But there is another side to the City Philadelphia is a victim of the move away from an economy based on manufacturing It has steadily lost jobs and people over the last 50 years Between 1965 and 2000, the City lost over 25 per cent of its population Just since 1988, 100,000 jobs were lost and almost

30 per cent of its residents live in poverty As a result, many of Philadelphia’s neighbourhoods are filled with vacant buildings and trash strewn lots (Figure 5.1) They are tormented by crime, drugs and unemployment

The people to whom these neighbourhoods are home, are clearly margin-alized communities Working with Philadelphia’s Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD) our hope was to introduce GIS to com-munity organizations in these neighbourhoods as a tool for strategic plan-ning If used correctly, GIS could help allow politicians and decision-makers see both the problems and the potential in proposed neighbourhood-based planning efforts, and to see how these neighbourhoods might be affected by their funding

In 1994, recognizing both the appropriateness of moving neighbourhood planning back to the neighbourhoods and the applicability of GIS for this purpose, OHCD funded a pilot project to bring GIS to the neighbourhoods The project provided equipment, software, data and training to 6 of the City’s 25 Community Development Corporations (CDCs) Both authors were drawn into the activities surrounding the GIS pilot; Casey as the head

of GIS for the City, and Pederson as the consultant under contract with OHCD to provide training, support and data to the CDCs

Community Development Corporations are inner city neighbourhood organizations with a goal of neighbourhood revitalization They emerged in the 1970s as participants of the funding and support gen-erated by the ‘War on Poverty’

Figure 5.1 A West Philadelphia streetscape.

After working with the participant CDCs on almost a daily basis, we came to understand well the issues emerging from the GIS pilot There were

a number of practical and logistical problems ranging from bad addresses

to problems involving the transfer of data between incompatible operating systems (DEC VMS and Windows) However, while addresses can be cor-rected and data transfer paths can be forged, during this pilot, we began to see problems more critical to the project – problems with the maps A sec-ond critical issue became the lack of skills necessary to run a GIS

The maps we started to see as a product of the pilot could not be compared side-by-side or collectively Each attached significance to colour differently and used its own classification schemes and categories, and symbology

We realized there were no standards and no ‘symbology vocabulary’ for mapping the urban environment in the way that exists in cartographic tradition for road maps or maps of natural features, such as hills or grass-lands

In addition, the maps seemed very limited in their ability to portray the qualitative aspects of a neighbourhood environment As we were witness to maps from neighbourhoods scattered over the City and had developed site context based on our repeated visits, we were in a position to notice that the maps did not meaningfully convey the very distinct physical and social dis-parities we observed in the neighbourhoods The following paragraphs are from a paper these authors wrote in 1995 that focused on the limitations

of traditional mapping standards, techniques, and symbology as applied to mapping neighbourhood environments

If one follows the premise, that ‘maps are models of the world – icons if you wish – for what our senses see through the filters of environment, culture, and experience,’ then the CDCs do not seem to have sufficient tools to make appropriate models of their neighborhoods (Aberley 1993) With the parcel base maps, tax assessors data, tax delinquency and vacancy data, there does not seem to be any way, for example, to convey the beautiful old stone buildings which are such a part of Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood Those that were turned into multi-family dwellings are simply so coded Those that were vacant and boarded are coded as vacant tax delinquents There does not seem to be

a means to convey the value of this wonderful architecture to the neigh-borhood or what it is worth as a resource The same applies to mapping the locations of local cultural or community value, such as a famous family-owned barbecued chicken place on the corner which is a social gathering place for the neighborhood Nor is it apparent how to map

other elements that make the environment unique such as wall size murals or statuary created by local artists, stores selling ethnic foods and other imported goods, local restaurants, blocks of particularly well kept houses, blocks of houses with details that reflect a certain building style,

or lively commercial corridors

Similarly, there is no ability to communicate the shocking degree of abandonment and dissipation in some of the neighborhoods Crumbled buildings, burned out abandoned cars, trash strewn lots and streets, broken glass and graffiti are in evidence everywhere but not on the maps For example, in the map of one part of West Philadelphia the neat little parcel lines, which correspond to its original development, seem to suggest some kind of active ownership interest Whereas, in fact, whole blocks have been completely abandoned or demolished (Figure 5.2) and former owners are long gone, owing the city as much

as 27 years worth of back taxes

Casey and Pederson 1995: 1

In our research for this 1995 paper, we discovered that while the problem

of mapping the elements needed to portray neighbourhood environments had been recognized, there were very few suggestions of means to resolve it Our paper proposed a three-tiered approach that included standardization, structured classification, and the development of appropriate symbology

Figure 5.2 Entire blocks have been demolished in some Philadelphia neighbourhoods.

However, as we acknowledged, ‘the answer for the CDCs is, obviously, not

a simple solution that we can profile in this paper and implement through our roles as promoters and supporters of the GIS project’ (Casey and Pederson 1995)

Seven years have passed since the inception of the GIS pilot The vision was that by now, scores of neighbourhood planners and interested citizens would be sitting at PCs in the CDC offices using GIS to both query the information regarding the particulars of their environments and to per-form ‘what if’ scenarios to assist with strategic planning This has not come to pass If bringing that vision to reality were the only measure of the program’s success, it failed For all the distribution of PCs and software, the cleaning and organizing of the data, and the hours of training and handholding, there is still an insignificant use of GIS at the level of the CDCs

Everyone concerned, OHCD, other city agencies watching the process, the CDCs themselves and the authors realized that one obstacle in reaching this vision far overshadowed all of the others – lack of skills necessary to use a GIS accompanied by the rapid turnover of any staff with the aptitude

to learn those skills CDCs have extremely limited budgets and their staffs

do not come with training in technology People with GIS skills, especially good conceptual and analytical skills, can easily find higher paying jobs Our problem was that the gap between the skill level needed to navigate

a Windows based GIS interface (ArcView in this case) and the skill level

we would find in the CDCs was underestimated Too much hinged on the ability of the group’s designated technology enabler

While the specific vision of PPGIS described above was not realized, the project was not a failure On the contrary, the work that went into that pilot, the personal contacts and the ‘bell ringing’ about the applicability of GIS to neighbourhood planning brought, across the board, increased awareness of the potential of this technology The best witness to this is the continuing GIS-centered activities

The City, OHCD, and others involved responded to the problems of the GIS pilot with new strategies Instead of continuing to fund individual CDCs, OHCD funded the Philadelphia Association of CDCs (PACDC) at a rate of about 60 thousand dollars a year to provide a ‘centre’ for GIS activ-ity where CDCs could find continuing technical support for neighbourhood mapping without having to employ skilled operators They could walk into PACDC’s office and emerge with a map made to their specifications PACDC over the last two years has created over 300 GIS-generated maps responsive to the requests of CDCs The City made GIS data available to

numerous non-profit consultants to provide maps in support of funding requests In addition, OHCD, with the University of Pennsylvania, built a GIS-based Neighbourhood Information System

Accompanying the realization that wholesale access to GIS was not suf-ficient to bring GIS to the neighbourhoods in a useful manner, have been continuous changes in the underlying technologies The most important of which are: (1) GIS software manufacturers began to provide the capability

of linking GIS systems to Internet technology; and (2) GIS software manu-facturers now provide open development environments between GIS and standard database interface tools such as PowerBuilder and Visual Basic As

a result, the tools available for dissemination of GIS technology have drast-ically altered The new technologies also polarized, and helped us

recog-nize two distinct types of systems which we call Public Records GIS and Neighbourhood Planning GIS.

Public Records GIS is the Internet distribution of data through GIS that a

city or other government body collects as part of their administration of policy and laws, and distribution of services It is information traditionally recorded, e.g property owners, tax assessment, code violations and so on

It is information collected with new technologies like orthophotography It includes data from Federal sources such as the Census Bureau or the EPA

It also includes data from utilities and from businesses that want to make their data public

Public Records GIS covers a wide range of functionality It includes interfaces such as a zoning application we have in Philadelphia which allows users to type in an address (or zoom in on an area) and be pres-ented with a parcel map showing the zoning and special use codes in effect (Figure 5.3)

Philadelphia will soon be deploying another Public Records GIS from the Streets Department which will show where planned under-the-street utility maintenance is going to occur

In 1994, the goals were to move portions of the GIS data and related city records to stand alone PCs located in neighbourhood offices for the CDCs and interested citizens to ‘have at it’ Now, Public Records GISs allow the distribution of central databases using the Internet with an easy-to-use interface This eliminates the problem of finding and keeping GIS trained personnel

OHCD’s Neighbourhood Information System is an example of a Public Record’s GIS with neighbourhood information The Cartographic Modeling Lab of the University of Pennsylvania developed it with grants from the Pew and William Penn Foundations to help with the analysis of potential

redevelopment of vacant land and buildings in Philadelphia (Figure 5.4).

It is based on the parcel map The user selects a parcel and is provided with information from the tax assessor, the department of Licenses and Inspections, the utilities, and data from the US Census It includes the abil-ity to aggregate certain of these data to various geo-political boundaries As

we go to press, this system has been operational at the university for over a year with access provided to city employees and people working in a com-munity development capacity

5.5.1 Strengths of Public Records GIS

Public Records GIS systems have the potential to be very useful for margin-alized urban communities For example, in connection with work we

recent-ly completed for The United Way for their Youth at Risk programme, we created a very powerful map using City data and Census information We were helping to determine where the programmes should be focused We put together a few of the pieces of data that had been made available and soon

we were looking at a map showing a Census Tract in Philadelphia where last year, 4 kids under 16 years were murdered, 5 girls from 10 to 14 years old

Figure 5.3 License and inspections zoning application.

had babies, and 251 single woman with children 5–17 were living below poverty Somehow, without further research, it seems clear that if the people

in this neighbourhood were organized and had access to this information, they could use it to cry out that Youth at Risk money would be well spent for their community

It is easy to envision a series of web-based, neighbourhood-oriented, user-centred, task-driven interfaces like the Neighbourhood Information System geared to a variety of intents These would allow unskilled users to select parameters and, with a few tools to control scale and extent, to create maps

to help bring attention to their needs We feel certain that Philadelphia will continue to expand the use of systems like this

Besides ease of use, there are other advantages to the new technologies The cost to the user is reduced to the cost of a PC and an Internet web browser that can usually be acquired at no cost With the data sets stored centrally and the processing being done on the server, the need for hefty PCs

to accommodate the large files and complex processing is eliminated A very basic PC is sufficient

Another advantage is de facto standards in neighbourhood mapping,

which we have been championing for some time now, will be enforced

Figure 5.4 The neighbourhood information system.

The themes, symbology and classifications will all be pre-set and unalter-able The inclusion of these standards as part of an interface allowing access

to data needed for neighbourhood planning will make all users interested

in that same data familiar with the symbology vocabulary and encourage its use

5.5.2 The limitations of Public Records GIS

There are still problems with a reliance on web interfaces and Public Records GIS for neighbourhood planning The obstacles to publishing this data caused by the limitations of the technology may have faded, but in Philadelphia, as in many other places, the issue of distributing the data evokes numerous strong opinions regarding legal implications and political ramifications Giving the data to CDCs for their own use is not the same as publishing it on the web City Hall may not want to make it so easy for the public in general to be able to find that 25 per cent of the properties in the City are tax delinquent The City will have to establish distribution policies that will address specific databases and even data elements within those databases The City is in the process of establishing an internal review board to sort through these issues which will be resolved, but not without time and effort

Much more complex than distribution policies will be the difficulties we found hard to resolve in mapping neighbourhood environments in general The problem at issue in the 1995 paper, namely that existing mapping tech-niques and symbology are inadequate to map the qualitative aspects of neighbourhoods, has not gone away In addition, the Public Records GIS, which eliminates dependency on the high-level skills required to operate a stand-alone GIS, does so with sacrifices It limits the available data, the tools for presentation and analysis, and the features that can be manipulated The components that are included in the interface between the user and the City’s data become the only components available A great deal of research and architechting will have to go into the development of the Public Records GISs for them to be truly effective

In addition to the component set, the manner of presentation needs to

be carefully considered If map themes are limited to ‘hard wired’ depic-tions, it will have a direct impact on the portrayal of various factors Information coded as cross hatches could be used in conjunction with information coded with solid colours, but the possibilities become more limited when the need is to depict solid colour-coded themes with other solid colour-coded themes The order of the themes, what is displayed on top of what, would also be preset and limit the ways in which the data could be viewed A particular interface could present the data in a biased fashion and unintentionally misrepresent a neighbourhood’s assets and resources

5.6 NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING GIS

Neighbourhood Planning GIS can take advantage of all the same data in

a Public Records GIS, but it adds two other things It adds community-based data and it adds the facility for manipulating and analysing the data

5.6.1 Place-based knowledge

Features that make a neighbourhood unique, such as cultural characteristics and architecture, as well as places that have community value are not col-lected in the normal course of a city’s record keeping The things of value in

a neighbourhood such as architecture or home grown community gardens,

as well as the things of negative value such as garbage-strewn playgrounds and crack houses, are not line items in any city database In fact, knowledge

of the value of neighbourhood features is something that can only come from the neighbourhood itself This was precisely the thought behind OHCD’s strategy to put this tool in the hands of the CDCs It follows along

the lines of what Doug Aberley expresses in Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Local Empowerment.

If images of our neighbourhoods, our communities, and our regions are made by others, then it is their future that will be imposed But if maps are made by resident groups, individuals who have quality of life as a goal, then images of a very different nature predominate

Aberley 1993: 130–131

5.6.2 Data manipulation facility

The stringent limits to the manoeuverability of features and themes that

a Public Record’s GIS imposes means that the experiments or ‘what-ifs’ that are required for neighbourhood planning are severely curtailed In Philadelphia, where we are losing population, a planner could want to show the effect of moving a few active residents into an otherwise vacant area, creating a new neighbourhood and freeing a large unutilized area for re-development Or, a neighbourhood might want to show the impact of a new business on support service businesses Or, a neighbourhood might want to propose to be the site for a new City-sponsored mural (a growing phenom-enon in Philadelphia) and demonstrate to the selection committee the path a tourist bus might take

An effective Neighbourhood Planning GIS would need to go beyond a fixed package of data and be able to pull the data together in new ways An interface that allowed a user access to the facilities that would permit these types of analyses would be, realistically, as complex as the ArcView software