The GeoCitizen-approach: community-based spatial planning – an Ecuadorian case study

Abstract

Over the last years, geospatial web platforms, social media, and volunteered geographic information (VGI) have opened a window of opportunity for traditional Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) to usher in a new era. Taking advantage of these technological achievements, this paper presents a new approach for a citizen-orientated framework of spatial planning that aims at integrating participatory community work into existing decision-making structures. One major cornerstone of the presented approach is the application of a social geoweb platform (the GeoCitizen platform) that combines geo-web technologies and social media in one single tool allowing citizens to collaboratively report observations, discuss ideas, solve, and monitor problems in their living environment at a local level. This paper gives an account of an ongoing participatory land-zoning process in the Capital District of Quito, Ecuador, where the GeoCitizen platform is applied in a long-term study.

A Conceptual Urban Quality Space-Place Framework: Linking Geo-Information and Quality of Life

“…In the context of VGI and citizen science, we consider it important to apply our concept of geo-socials to the social media-based information, to obtain insights for community-based solutions and urban planning. For instance, the GeoCitizen platform is a type of social network where citizens are able to geo-reference problematics affecting their neighborhoods and also propose initiatives to improve their quality of life [59]. Other popular social networks, such as Twitter, offer useful geo-referenced information to work with locational 'senses of place' in the urban context.…”

Citizen Science for Urban Forest Management? Predicting the Data Density and Richness of Urban Forest Volunteered Geographic Information

“…Along with the exponential growth in academic research on VGI, practicing planners and public officials have become interested in the potential to use VGI tools in attempts to make planning more participatory [3,[20][21][22][23], reflecting earlier and continuing interests in public participation geographic information systems (GIS) (PPGIS) [22,23]. The hopes and concerns surrounding VGI in the planning community are similar to those presented in academic discourse.…”

“…In the extreme case, VGI has the potential to deepen rather than ameliorate differentials in place-based resources devoted to certain locales through policy decisions if neighborhoods where a large portion of trees are unrepresented are neglected due to their lack of representation in urban forest VGI datasets. The uneven representation in VGI coverage extends beyond urban forests [1,14,16], and may reinforce inequalities in representation from traditional data sources, where marginalized groups and areas are not always counted [1,2,4,21,49]. While there are concerns around privacy and surveillance by both the state and capital with the growing amount of digital traces generated through VGI and other sources [1,2,17], documenting the presence and condition of urban trees seems to provide a positive increase in legibility.…”

“…Johnson and Seiber [19] identify cost of the technology, questionable accuracy, and formality of non-expert data, and jurisdictional issues as three considerations for local governments to take into account. Despite these concerns, successful pilot studies of VGI as a participatory planning tool have been conducted in Finland, Norway [20], and Ecuador [21]. VGI urban forest inventories represent one of the many ways in which the technology could be used as a participatory planning tool in the United States.…”

“…Akin to issues in participatory planning at large, there remain questions as to the level that which VGI would be considered by actual decision-makers [20,21,24]. Johnson and Seiber [19] identify cost of the technology, questionable accuracy, and formality of non-expert data, and jurisdictional issues as three considerations for local governments to take into account.…”