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GIS and Planning
 Planning
is a future-oriented activity, based ideally on shared information and
the active participation and consent of all stakeholders (Nedovic-Budic,
2000). The planning realm encompasses all geographic scales from the
national to the local, and combines domains of interest ranging from
the natural environment, regional infrastructure, through urban and
regional development and economic growth. Planning problems within the
urban domain require decision-making and solutions in situations
concerning urban growth and change; unemployment, decline and economic
revitalization; transportation; environmental degradation; residential
neighborhood decline and redevelopment; historic preservation;
conservation of land and natural resources; and the provision of open
space, parks and recreation facilities (Jones 1997). Alternatively the
role of planning agencies may be more routine _ focusing on inventory,
monitoring, regulation, and enforcement. The tasks confronting
planners regularly include the sighting of new industrial areas and
the reuse of old ones, the location of hospitals and other essential
services, residential developments, recreation and leisure facilities
and public open space. They comprise highway building and maintenance,
emergency response and hazardous materials planning, zoning, and the
ordinary processing of planning applications. In each case the demand
for information by the planners and those for whom the plans are made
is enormous (Huxhold, 1991, Martin 1996).
Access to information,
the ability to process it and the generation of alternative outcomes,
frequently in an iterative procedure, are essential in supporting
decision-making.
Consequently, GIS is
fundamental to planning for its role in maintaining databases of a
wide variety of types of spatial on non-spatial data. Information
integration on the basis of a shared geographic footprint is seen as
one of the major strengths of GIS. Beyond data integration and access
facilitation, the power of GIS as a decision support tool stems from
its analytical and synthesizing potential. The value of GIS in the
planning process increases directly with its ability to portray
information at different scales of resolution, generate analytic
solutions to planning problems and generate alternative scenarios. The
role of "what if?" is nowhere more highly developed and used than
within the planning context.
Ideally GIS should offer
support to the planning process universally. It is often assumed that
the expense of software and hardware is the bottleneck in the
increased use of GIS technology in the developing world, but the lack
of adequate spatial data remains the most significant constraint (Yeh
2000). In developing countries comprehensive, multi-cadastral, data
are scarce. Yeh (2000, 885) comments that in developing countries the
most readily available data are from remote sensing sources, leading
to an emphasis on land cover rather than land use, and on physical
environmental data rather than social and economic.
Socio-economic data are
primarily acquired through field surveys, which are expensive, and
developing countries are unable to mobilize resources to collect
important statistical information. Incomplete, inaccurate, out-of-date
data are unfortunately the rule rather than the exception.
Planning for Global
Urbanization
The rapid growth of
population and its concentration in cities around the world constitute
a crucial element affecting the long-term outlook for humanity.
Between 1970 and the closure of the 20th century, urban
populations increased from 35 to 50 percent of the global total.
Indeed, it is estimated that more than 1.5 billion will be added to
urban populations across the globe during the next 25 years, when 60
percent of all the world's people will be living in or near cities
(Global Outlook, 2001; Kirdar, 1997; Rakodi, 1997). A disturbing
aspect of these figures is that 90 percent of urban population growth
between 2000 and 2020 will accrue in cities of the developing world.
Take Africa for example, long thought of as one of the least urbanized
continents, it is expected that over half the population will be urban
by the year 2020 (Aryeetey-Attoh, 1997; Rakodi, 1997). This global
demographic shift points to the realty that the world's problems are
urban problems, the world's future is an urban one, and that cities
present the arena where the battle for sustainable human development
will be won or lost.
The rapid urbanization of
the world's population poses new and special challenges to governments
and communities around the world as they confront issues of economic,
political, social, and cultural integration and transformation. As we
begin the 21st Century, new forms of globalization and
technological advancements continue to blur traditional national
boundaries.
Information about
Cities
Contemporary urban
problems include: environmental pollution (Fuchs, 1994; Kirdar, 1997);
poverty, homelessness, unemployment, disease, crime, and social
inequalities (Global Outlook, 2001; Kirdar, 1997; Knox, 1998; Rakodi,
1997); and poor management, land scarcity, declining resource base,
civil strive, and institutional inflexibility (Leitmann, 1999; N'Dow,
1997; Stren and White, 1989; Wekwete, 1994). Too often these problems
and phenomena that characterize the process of urbanization continue
to be poorly documented and represented, hence depicting a distorted
picture of the city. The situation is more critical among cities in
the developing world where the divide between urban reality and the
ability to comprehend that reality is most significant. In Africa for
instance, Rakodi (1997:10) observes, "One of the most significant
problems in addressing urbanization issues and in assessing the
performance of urban management.... is the dearth of information". The
reasons for this lack of data and the unreliability of information are
well known: economic difficulties (Stren, 1994); political turmoil (Rakodi,
1997; Stren and White, 1989); war and civil unrest (Kirdar, 1997;
N'Dow, 1997); and a combination of over centralization and an emphasis
on rural development (Mabogunje, 1992; Obudho, 1994).
The urban information
crisis in developing regions severely constrains the ability to
develop and analyze effective urban policy. A sustained and systematic
appraisal of urban problems, as well as tools for urban policy has
been largely inadequate in providing the overall picture of the city
and how it functions.
Rarely do these tools provide an indication of the relationships
between the performance of individual sectors and broader social and
economic development results (Leitmann, 1999). In determining the
causes of urban dysfunction and in monitoring progress toward
achieving sustainable cities, it is increasingly necessary to rely on
effective tools to analyze the performance of cities, within
countries, and on a worldwide basis.
There is a problem with
reliable and appropriate data at the intra-city scale. Most major
economic aggregates, which might measure the health of the urban
economy such as city product, investment or trade, etc, are
unavailable. Other data, which might measure the condition of the
population, infrastructure and the environment, are available in some
places and not others, and are seldom collected in a consistent
international framework (UNCHS, 2000). Worse still, while enormous
data have been generated at very high costs throughout the world, they
are often incomplete, inappropriate, inaccurate, or generated for
narrow planning applications. There is a global need to build national
and local capacity to collect useful information on urban conditions
and trends, to convert the information to knowledge through
appropriate techniques, and to apply this knowledge in formulating and
modifying urban policies and programs (UNCHS, 1999). This will help to
resolve the information crises and close the knowledge gaps that blur
the vision of city leaders and the hopes and aspirations of urban
citizenry.
UN Responses and
Global Urban Indicators
The Global Urban
Observatory is a UNCHS Habitat's facility for monitoring and
evaluating the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and Agenda 21.
This body was born of a resolution by the 1996 UNCHS Habitat II
Conference in Instabul, Turkey, that "All partners of the Habitat
Agenda, including local authorities, the private sector, and
communities should regularly MONITOR and EVALUATE their own
performances in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda through
comparable human settlement and shelter INDICATORS…" (Paragraph 240 of
the Habitat Agenda). The Urban Indicators Program (UIP) and the Best
Practice and Local Leadership (BLP) together make up the Global Urban
Observatory. This Urban Indicators Program was born of the realization
that many cities of the world (particularly the developing world) are
faced with an information crisis, which seriously undermine their
capacity to develop and analyze urban policy. This decentralized
networking and capacity building program responds to one of the most
critical needs of urban policy _ the need for better information on
urban conditions and trends.
The meaning and role of
indicators has thus been defined: `...a measure that summarizes
information about a particular subject and may point to particular
problems … (and) provides a reasonable response to specific needs and
questions…" (UNDP, 2000). Regardless of the definition, literature has
demonstrated that various indicators based on easily obtained data can
offer useful intelligence for making strategic choices about directing
and managing future growth.
Furthermore, while
indicators primarily show trends, prioritize and define targets,
provide qualitative and quantitative information etc, (Barnejee, 1996;
Leitmann, 1999), they can also be more than pieces of information if
designed in response to well defined policy objectives (Global
Outlook, 2000; Sawicki and Flynn, 1996).
In a special issue of the
Journal of the American Planning Association devoted to a
discussion of indicators, Banerjee (1996:222) summarized the purposes
of indictors as:
To measure performance of
policies and programs; to examine trends; to monitor the condition of
a city or a region; to inform decision-makes; to raise awareness of
the public; to define targets; to set planning objectives; to compare
localities horizontally (across space) or longitudinally (over time);
to raise flags in an early warning system; to guide strategic
investment choices; to challenge conventional wisdom; and so forth.
Similar views are shared
by Sawicki and Flynn (1996) and Leitmann (1999) who feel that
indicators must be capable of affecting citizen action and public
policy making, and hence must be formulated through a broad-based
partnership approach involving all levels of decision-making and all
stakeholders. However, it has been argued that stakeholder
participation in this process has always remained questionable as
experts dominate the scene (Leitmann, 1999).
In a more detailed
fashion, Leitmann (1999) elaborates the need for stakeholder
participation in the development of indicators and the problems that
beset this phase. Noting that urban indicators must be linked to the
development process, the author emphasizes that a realistic set of
urban indicators should be:
"…measurable, based on
existing data, affordable, based on a time series, quickly observable,
change sensitive, widely accepted, easy to understand, and balanced" (Leitmann,
1999:168). From this discussion, and elsewhere in the literature, it
is seemingly apparent that urban indicators involve measurement, and
so their validity and meaningfulness in planning is critical and must
be within specific contexts — scale, scope, institutional setting,
history etc (Banerjee, 1996; Global Outlook, 2001; Leitmann, 1999;
UNCHS, 2001). Similarly, the geographic unit of analysis (household,
census block, block group, tract, neighborhood, city, county, state,
and nation) and the scale at which the data are reported
(neighborhoods in one city, all states in a nation etc) must be a
central consideration in the creation of such databases (Leitmann,
1999; Sawicki and Flynn, 1996).
It is agreeable that
there is no ideal "objective" set of indicators or criteria for
developing indicators. Too often, experts in a top-down fashion
clearly distanced from the people whose quality of life is being
assessed formulate urban indicators. Nevertheless, the United Nations
has provided a broad framework from which all nations can base their
selection depending on their respective local settings. For instance,
in preparation for the HABITAT II conference and the subsequent
implementation of the HABITAT agenda, the UNHCS short-listed six key
urban indicators as:
From this initial list,
an extensive list has been developed under the six categories to
comprise of over a hundred and twenty (120) sections (Leitmann, 1999;
UNHCS, 1997).
 Geographic
Information Systems and Urban Indicators
Geographic Information
Systems have been commonly used for urban applications such as
comprehensive planning, hazard and environmental `hot-spot'
identification, zoning, land use inventories, land use and land cover
mapping, site suitability assessments, socio-demographic analysis,
management of infrastructure, change analysis, as well as other more
sophisticated analytical applications (Barnejee, 1996; Leitmann, 1999;
Nedovic-Budic, 2000; Maclaren, 1996; Ryznar and Wagner, 2001). GIS
has, indeed, become an ideal tool for planners and policy makers (Leitmann,
1999).
The spatial nature of
urban phenomena prescribes the use of geospatial technologies in urban
management. GIS analysis is mainly used during the informed
consultation phase to generate physical and social information,
including key correlations, and for monitoring the implementation of
plans in cities. Sawicki and Flynn (1996) engaged a thorough
conceptual and theoretical examination of the literature where they
identify urban environmental indicators as the precursors of
neighborhood indicators in the United States. To illustrate the
relevance of GIS, it is argued "With many records located in space,
the GIS can then aggregate them to any level of geography: city
blocks, neighborhoods, census block groups, tracts, municipalities and
counties (Sawicki and Flynn, 1996:166).
Furthermore, the
analytical capabilities of GIS have made the technology more than just
a communicative visual tool hence most applicable in the development
of indicators for evaluating urban policy and the quality of our
cities. This way, the use of the technology would fall within the five
geographic information science (GIScience) potential areas for
planning as identified by Nedovic-Budic (2000:82): database
development, integration of geospatial technologies with urban models,
building of planning support systems, facilitating discourse and
participation, and evaluating planning practice and technological
impact.
Applications of GIS have
recently disseminated to developing nations in general and Sub-Saharan
Africa in particular (Conitz, 2000; Gar-On Yeh, 1991; Hastings and
Clark, 1991). It is evident however that the levels of adoption have
varied across the continent with richer countries (South Africa for
instance) far much ahead of poorer ones (such as Mozambique). Despite
the rapid adoption, the use of the technology has tended to reside in
externally funded projects or state agencies and rarely is it owned
and used by people at the grassroots. Similarly, there has not been a
coordinated style of adoption and use in many countries. Although
local authorities in different countries in Africa have engaged GIS at
different levels, enormous gaps in information and citywide data have
become commonplace. In this project, GIS is used for the development
of baseline spatial data for the city of Beira, Mozambique, and the
analysis of this information for policy formulation and evaluation
purposes.
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INTRODUCTION
