GIS in Public Policy

Since the late 1980s, geographic information systems, or GIS, have become almost ubiquitous in public organizations and throughout the nonprofit sector. Over this period, geospatial capability has become essential. The powers of GIS, including the assimilation, analysis, and graphical display of large volumes of geographically coded (geocoded) information, are widely recognized. They are typically used for purposes such as managing planning and zoning, geodemographic service management, emergency response system optimization and path selection, targeted-facilities location, and many others. Much of the innovation has been driven by the use of GIS for private sector marketing and spillover functionality that public organizations have capitalized on. At the same time, some functional areas, such as more reflexive data capture for GIS using Internet applications, are being targeted by both academic researchers and public sector developers and practitioners.

But why does—or should—GIS matter for public policy? Normatively, this entry assumes that the purpose of GIS in public policy is to increase spatial justice, that is, the distribution of costs and benefits across regions, areas, and populations. This justification is often presented by public organizations charged with improving the quality of public goods allocation. As Paul Longley (2005) argues,

This entry presents a brief overview of significant trends within GIS literature in geography, planning, and critical GIScience literature and connects these with the public policy field. The range of public policy applications considered includes policy, environmental management, transportation and land use planning, and infrastructure design. Rather than presenting a laundry list of citations and examples of technical applications, this entry highlights several current trends in the deployment of GIS for public policy, to illustrate some technical developments that promise to increase functionality and to outline some structural impediments to the achievement of better spatial justice in public policy application.