Citizen Planners

Citizen Planners: Shaping Communities with Spatial Tools describes how geographic information systems can be made accessible to ordinary citizens with little or no professional training to help plan and shape their local communities. The book focuses on the efforts of a group of Wisconsin citizens from all backgrounds who pushed for legislation that resulted in the GIS-based Wisconsin Land Information Program. The authors share the ideas, observations, experiences, and outcomes from this comprehensive effort showing readers what methods could be applied in their own geographic, political, and cultural environments. The book also describes Planning Analyst, a set of off-the-shelf technology-based tools and procedures, that provide citizen planners the ability to explore information about their environment and society, analyze factors relevant to choices about land and its uses, allocate land for different uses in the future, and evaluate the impact of allocations. Citizen Planners encourages and shows citizens and citizen-action groups how to make use of geospatial tools to effectively engage in the land-use planning, design, and management process.