Community GIS in NYC

or “How to Present a Case Study from the Book (or elsewhere)”

Pedagogical Purpose

• YOU get close-up familiarity with an application of GIS

• YOU get practice preparing and giving a short presentation

• YOUR CLASSMATES learn about an application of GIS

• WE ALL have an opportunity to see connections, think of new questions, etc.

What the Case Study is About

• General: How GIS is used by big city NPOs as tool for outreach, community involvement and planning.

• Specific. The Municipal Art Society (MAS) is a NYC NPO “whose mission is to promote a more livable city.” MAS uses GIS to support various community/neighborhood projects

Four Projects

• Post 9/11 “Imagine New York”

• Lower Manhattan Preservation Fund

• Community-based Planning

• Olympic Planning

“Imagine New York”

Challenges/Goals

Rebuilding after 9/11

Impulse to get lots of folks involved

Democratize tools – give participants maps

Recruitment (diversity and target areas)

Document breadth of participation

Targeting Recruitment

Documenting Participation

Community-based Planning

• At local level, provide GIS support for local discussions

• Where is it already happening, where might it be encouraged

• At macro level, allow plan information to be combined on one map

• See city-wide distribution of plans and implications• Allow neighborhoods to identify others with

similar concerns

An Aside: What’s a Charrette?

Provide GIS Tools to

Community Groups

Combine Local Plans in City-wide Context

Overlaying Plans Shows Implicit Collective Vision

Maps Show Latent

Conflicts and Opportunities

for Collaboration

http://www.mas.org/planningcenter/atlas/

FYI: What They Produced…