<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 97">
<meta name="Template" content="C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\html.dot">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.5b2 [en] (WinNT; I) [Netscape]"></head><body link="#0000ff" vlink="#800080">
<center><b><font face="Univers,Arial"><font size="+1">Mapping Urban Neighborhood
Environments</font></font></b>
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Liza Casey</font>
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Director of Enterprise GIS</font>
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica">City of Philadelphia</font>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial"><a href="mailto:liza.casey@phila.gov">liza.casey@phila.gov</a></font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">Tom Pederson</font>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">Director of Research and Development</font>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">Cartographic Modeling Lab</font>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">University of Pennsylvania</font>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial"><a href="mailto:twped@dolphin.upenn.edu">twped@dolphin.upenn.edu</a></font></p></center>
<p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">Abstract</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">For the last four years, the City of Philadelphia
has been working to bring GIS technology to the level of neighborhood planners.
While successful in generating enthusiasm for the applicability of GIS
for this purpose, use of the technology in the neighborhoods is still minimal.
A 1995 paper by these authors documented the project with particular focus
on the limits of existing mapping techniques and symbology for mapping
urban neighborhood environments. This paper documents the progress of the
City's continued efforts to give its neighborhood planners access
to its GIS resources and the impact on that effort of new technologies.
Our theme continuing from the awareness of the difficulties of mapping
urban environments, is that although the City may now be in a much better
position to distribute its GIS data through less expensive, easier to use
interfaces, it could be exacerbating the difficulties of effectively mapping
urban neighorhoods.</font>
</p><p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">Background</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">The City of Philadelphia, with the foresight
and support of the Rendell administration, has been on the forefront of
GIS since the technology became viable for a municipal environment. In
1994, recognizing both the appropriateness of moving neighborhood planning
back to the neighborhoods and the applicability of GIS for this purpose,
the Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD) funded a pilot project
to bring GIS to the neighborhoods. The project provided equipment, software,
data and training to a 6 of the City's 25 Community Development
Corporations (CDCs). CDCs are inner city neighborhood organizations with
a goal of neighborhood revitalization. They emerged in the 1970's
as participants of the funding and support generated by the "War on Poverty."
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.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">After working with the participant CDCs on
almost a daily basis we came to well understand 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 corrected and data transfer paths can be kluged, during this pilot
an unforeseen category of problems emerged, much broader than the program
itself, for which there seemed to be no significant recognition. 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 color differently and used
different classification schemes and symbology. It placed a tremendous
burden on the map-reader when he or she attempted to compare the maps.
In addition, the maps seemed very limited in their ability to portray the
qualitative aspects of a neighborhood environment. Because we were witnesses
to maps from neighborhoods 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
disparities in the neighborhoods. In 1995 we wrote a paper for the ESRI
Users Conference that focused on the limitations of traditional mapping
standards, techniques and symbology as applied to mapping neighborhood
environments.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">In our research for the 1995 paper we discovered
that while the problem of mapping the elements needed to portray neighborhood
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. However, as we acknowledged in the 1995 paper, "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."</font>
</p><p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">Current Status</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">Four years have passed by since the inception
of the GIS pilot. The vision, which was that by now scores of neighborhood
planners and interested citizens would be sitting at PC's in
the CDC offices using GIS to both query about information regarding the
particulars of their environments and to perform "what if" scenarios to
assist with strategic planning, has not come to pass. If bringing that
vision to reality were the only measure of the program's success,
it failed. For all distribution of PC's and software, the cleaning
and organizing of the data, and the hours of training and handholding,
there is not widespread use of GIS at the level of the CDCs. A recent survey
showed that only three CDCs use GIS at all and those three sites use only
the system's most basic functions primarily for presentation
purposes, instead of for analysis and planning.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">Everyone concerned, OHCD, other city agencies
watching the process, the CDC's themselves and the authors realized
that one obstacle in reaching this vision far overshadowed all of the others--the
two-forked problem of lack of skills necessary to use a GIS and the turnover
of those with the aptitude or training. CDCs have extremely limited budgets
and their staff's do not come highly trained. People with GIS
skills, especially good conceptual and analytical skills, can easily find
higher paying jobs. Our problem was that we underestimated 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. Too much hinged
on the ability of the group's designated technology enabler.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">However, while the specific vision of "public
participation GIS" 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 neighborhood
planning brought, across the board, increased awareness of the potential
of this technology. The best witness to this is the fact that OHCD is still
funding neighborhood access to GIS at a rate of about 60 thousand dollars
each year.
</font></p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">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), the umbrella organization for the CDCs to provide a "center" for
GIS activity where CDCs could find continuing technical support for neighborhood
mapping without having to employ the skills themselves. They could walk
in to PACDCs office and emerge with a map. 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. The City also collaborated
with the resources of local Universities to provide GIS based services.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">Probably one of the most remarkable collaborations
to further the goal of dispersed participation in GIS was Philadelphia's
application for a grant from the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)
Competitive Cooperative Agreement Program. In 1996 the City partnered with
ESRI (developers of ArcView and Arc/Info), ADR (a local GIS consulting
firm), PACDC, and the University of Pennsylvania for a grant to design
an interface for Internet access to GIS for neighborhood planning (reference
number 96001). One of the things being promoted by NSDI through this grant
program was standards. Having already realized the need for standards for
effective neighborhood planning, we reasoned that if there was wide spread
Internet access to data presented using the standards on the Internet it
would lead to a familiarity with the symbology--a shared language--which
would encourage its adoption. The grant was turned down with for some very
specific reasons--among them was, "It is not clear if there is
a willingness to continue the project or build upon it after completion
of the design." As it turns out, the willingness was there.
The City, OHCD, PACDC, and the University of Pennsylvania have continued
their efforts to provide neighborhood access to GIS which may be beginning
to come to fruition.</font>
</p><p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">New Technologies</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">Accompanying the realization that wholesale
access to GIS was not sufficient to bring GIS to the neighborhoods in a
useful manner, have been continuos changes in the underlying technologies.
The most important of which are: 1) that GIS software manufacturers began
to provide the capability of linking GIS systems to Internet technology;
and, 2) that the same GIS software manufacturers 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 drastically altered.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">In 1994 the goals were to move portions of
the GIS data and related city records to stand alone PCs located in distributed
offices for the staffs and interested citizens to "have at it." Now, the
technology exists to maintain and store the data on centralized databases
and provide Internet access through an interface that requires very little
training and skill to operate, eliminating the problem of finding and keeping
appropriate personnel. The user-centered task driven interface can provide
users with a series of coverages that can be turned on and off, tools to
manipulate the extent and scale of the data and tools for analysis. In
this year's proposal for funding from OHCD, PACDC specifically
describes taking advantage of this technology. "PACDC will reincorporate
and centralize processing and fundamental analytical functions before it
is distributed to CDCs. The focus will be to develop information
"packages" that can be easily disseminated and interpreted immediately
no further processing involved. A user will remotely submit
a query whereby the interface will access the data sets in real time, dynamically
aggregate and calculate the data to a neighborhood level and display a
community profile in tabular and graphical formats."</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">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 a Web browser which 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 PC's to accommodate the large files and complex
processing is eliminated. A network (or bare bones) PC would be ample.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">Another advantage is that it will become
<i>de facto</i> the means by which the use of standards in neighborhood
mapping, which we have been championing for some time now, will be enforced.
The themes, symbology and classifications will all be pre-set and unalterable.
As we projected in our NSDI grant application, the presence of these standards
as part of an interface allowing access to data needed for neighborhood
planning will make all users, interested in that same data, familiar with
the "language" and encourage its use.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial"> In addition, the City has responded
grandly to the new technology. An unprecedented application in 1997 from
the Mayor's Office of Information Services for 1.7 million dollars
to build a server to provide Citywide access to GIS including Internet
access was funded. This server, which should be installed in early 1999,
is being designed with the capacity to accommodate the needs of neighborhood
access.</font>
</p><p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">The Continuing Problem</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">Because the technology is in place to more
easily disseminate GIS data, there has been much discussion and activity
that touch on "public participation GIS" in the City of Philadelphia. This
is true in the context of neighborhood planning but also in many other
contexts such as the title community, those interested in zoning information,
tax assessment patterns, permitting, code violations, tax delinquency,
property value, utility maintenance data, and many others. 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,
political ramifications and the appropriateness of charging for the data.
Although Philadelphia is not as far along on its distribution policy as
some other cities, in time, these issues will be resolved as were the technical
issues before them. However, in the context of neighborhood planning, the
difficulties that we found hard to resolve in mapping neighborhood environments
in general become even more complex.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">The problem at issue in the 1995 paper, namely
that existing mapping technique and symbology are inadequate to map the
qualitative aspects of neighborhood environments has not gone away. In
addition, the "packaged" GIS intended to ease the impediment, <i>i.e</i>.,
the skill level required to operate a stand alone GIS, potentially 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, which is in reality just
a very sophisticated Web page, become the only components available. A
great deal of research and architecting will have to go into the development
of the interface for it to be truly effective.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">If one looks at the City of Oakland Web page
(<a href="http://www.oaknet.com/government/ceda/ceda.html">www.oaknet.com/government/ceda/ceda.html</a>)
and navigates to the GIS data sections, there is a wealth of information
available there. Philadelphia would love to have its corresponding data
sets available on its Web site. The data is useful for a variety of purposes
such as for visitors to the City or checking the surroundings of a specific
address. The Web site states, "Check ownership by address or Assessor Parcel
Number (APN). Search for and view parcels which meet your development criteria.
Select neighboring parcels, and print a report of same. Determine zoning,
lot size, distance to fire stations, hospitals, transportation, etc." However,
it is not particularly useful for neighborhood planning. Even if it included
information that neighborhood planners usually seek such as tax delinquency
or participation in local or federal assistance programs it would still
generate maps that were essentially flat. Features that make a neighborhood
unique such as cultural characteristics and architecture as well as places
that have community value are not classified. An interface that included
even more of the data currently available in City files along with Census
data and standard survey data would still omit many of the factors that
create unique neighborhood environments.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">A GIS package that was prepared for use throughout
the City could present the data in a biased fashion and unintentionally
overlook neighborhood assets and resources. A good example in Philadelphia
is an area in the Germantown section of the City that is very much impoverished
and abandoned. The architecture of those abandoned properties is rare--they
are beautiful stone structures on large treed plots (at least by Philadelphia
standards). The City's databases simply categorize them as tax
delinquent vacants. This fact harkens to the issue of insufficient symbology
but, in addition, points to the limitation we see if elements neighborhood
planners want to map do not correspond to the mappable features presented
in the interface. Enough diverse, mappable features would have to be included
in the interface for it to address the true needs of neighborhood planners.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">A GIS neighborhood planning package for use
in surrounding suburban environment would likely lend itself more easily
to standardization in addition to being easier to design. The factors that
would need to be taken into consideration would be more homogeneous. Suburbs
generally do not have the type of drastically diverse environments that
are serviced by the City's CDCs. They can be categorized more
easily by the cost of the housing and proximity to service centers, shopping,
recreational facilities, public transportation and jobs. Classification
categories and mapped features would apply, more or less, throughout. In
a dense and varied urban environment like Philadelphia the features that
make a neighborhood valued to its residents are widely diversified. In
South Philly it might be proximity to a vast open-air market that specialized
in hard-to-find Italian food stuffs or corner cheese steak stands. In Center
City it might be easy access to restaurants and cultural institutions.
In the Russian section of the Northeast it might be the fact that shop
keepers speak Russian. In lower Kensington there is growing concentration
of Palestinians who have built an environment where they are surrounded
by those who share similar cultural and religious practices. There are
also areas in the City that are quite similar to a suburban environment.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">This is not to say that an appropriate and
useful interface cannot be designed for an environment like Philadelphia.
In Philadelphia where neighborhoods are generally in much greater need
of planning and, as was stated above, expensive skills sets are not affordable,
such an application would probably have greater utility than in suburban
environments. Our point is that in the same way that mapping technique
and symbology need to be built to effectively convey the condition of urban
environments, the component sets in a GIS interface still need considerable
attention and examination before they could be effectively employed for
neighborhood planning in a environment such as Philadelphia's.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">In addition to the component set, the manner
of presentation needs to be carefully considered. If map themes are limited
to "hard wired" depictions, 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 colors, but the possibilities
become more limited when the need is to depict solid color-coded themes
with other solid color-coded themes. The order of the themes, what is displayed
on top of what, would also be preset and limit ways to view the data.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">The stringent limits to maneuverability of
features that this type of interface would impose would mean that experiments
or "what ifs" would be severely curtailed. In Philadelphia, where we are
losing population, a planner could want to show the effect of moving a
few active residents in an otherwise vacant area to a viable cluster, creating
a new neighborhood and freeing a large unutilized area for redevelopment.
Or, a neighborhood might want to show the impact of a new business on the
support services the business would need to take advantage of which could
have a positive impact on community businesses. Or, a neighborhood might
want to contend to be the site for a new City sponsored mural (a growing
phenomenon in the City) and demonstrate to the selection committee the
path a tourist bus might take. Unless permitted by the designers of the
interface, these would be impossible to map.</font>
</p><p><b><font face="Univers,Arial">Call for Attention</font></b>
<br><font face="Univers,Arial">We see the limitations described above,
not as a dead end, but as a call for attention, for more planning and research.
If the City with PACDC and the local universities can create an interface
that will get more City data to the neighborhoods with greater ease and
lower cost that will be a major accomplishment. We will both strongly support
that effort. If we continue to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is the
creation of an interface that is effective at neighborhood planning, a
much more effective tool will eventually emerge. This will be a highly
iterative process taking place between those with design and programming
skills and those with knowledge of the neighborhoods. It is possible that
even the limits of these newer technologies will frustrate the process
and we will have to wait for new technical capabilities to meet these needs
fully.</font>
</p><p><font face="Univers,Arial">In the mean time it is important to guard
against forgetting that until the inflexibility of GIS packages described
above have been addressed, the GIS interfaces being deployed will impose
a bias on the way in which the information is disseminated to the CDCs.
And, in reverse, it will also impact the ways the CDCs can present their
story to politicians and potential funding sources.</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</p></body></html>