Participatory Geographic Information Science

Abstract

A majority of governmental problems are geographical in character and are becoming more complex as citizens/residents expect more for less. Governance, among many things, involves allocating human, natural, monetary, and infrastructure resources within and across jurisdictional boundaries in an efficient, effective, and equitable manner. Such allocations are becoming increasingly more challenging under budget constraints. Many public policy problems are called “wicked” and “ill-structured” (Rittel & Webber, 1973) because they contain intangibles not easily quantified and modelled. The scoping of such problems includes structures only partially known or burdened by uncertainties, and potential solutions mired by competing interests. Examples of such problems in a geographic domain include locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) such as landfill and hazardous waste facility siting, and more recently, polluted urban land use (so-called brownfield) redevelopment projects called into question due to the potential for increasing neighbourhood contamination. Dealing with locational conflict in an open manner is becoming more important as citizen-stakeholder participation increases in public policy/problem circumstances (Crowfoot & Wondolleck 1990).