GIS: Where Are We?
by Tom Babington and Frank R. Hagy
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Statistically, we know that about 80 percent of a municipal organization’s functions revolve around its geography. Perhaps one of the most valuable systems to supporting the geographic functions is the Geographic Information System (GIS). Yet, to many of those in municipal government, GIS continues to be a mystery, especially when trying to measure the progress of GIS in their own organization.
First let’s define GIS. GIS is a combination of hardware and software used for storing, retrieving, mapping and analyzing geographic data. Spatial features are stored within the system in a coordinate system (such as latitude/longitude, state plane, etc.) to reference a particular place or location. Descriptive attributes are associated with the spatial features, thus allowing tabulating, analysis, management, investigations, and development and planning items based upon their geographic location. The basic components of the spatial data are points, lines or arcs, and polygons. Having these types of relationships, you can perform analysis or modeling by overlaying the geographic features. For instance, you can find all the owners of abutting properties within 3,000 feet of a given point in order to notify them of a proposed zoning change.
Most municipalities have begun, or are well into, the use of GIS systems as a tool to accomplish their tasks. Often, however, it is hard to measure the progress of our GIS systems, what stage we are at, or what the future might hold.
We can view GIS on a maturity mode that consists of four dimensions: stages, characteristics, capability and time.
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Stages – Four clearly delineated periods of activity, during which a variety of event-driven changes of some significance were either introduced by the GIS industry or adopted by organizations in the process of developing GIS.
Characteristics – Specific attributes that reflect the increasing complexity of an organization’s cognitive view, developmental expectations and technological positioning through each of the four stages.
Capabilities – General examples of the types of performance, output and outcome benefits realized by organizations through each of the four stages.
Time – Forty-year continuum of GIS development and utilization in local government, estimating one decade for each of the four stages.
In order to make it easier to evaluate where your organization may be within these dimensions, and to perhaps capture the spirit of the organization as it moves through this maturation process, each stage has been provided an identity:
Stage 1 – “Visionaries and Pioneers.” Those who championed the cause of GIS in years past and those who lead the efforts to introduce GIS to their organizations today.
Stage 2 – “The Agony and the Ecstasy” – Calls to mind the epic tale, which included Michelangelo’s decades-long endeavor to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the echoes of the pope’s repeated demand to know, “When will it be done?” In this context, it characterizes the challenges of the second stage, the starts and stops, promises met and unmet, the dialogue between GIS leaders and senior management, which typically take place during the base map development process.
Stage 3 – “Golden Age of GIS” – Technology improvements in software, database, reporting tools and infrastructure brought the price tag down and the adoption rate up. Before this stage, GIS was locked in a mainframe in a data center. By the end of this stage, it was accessible to the world via the Internet.
Stage 4 – “Final Frontier” – By no means the end of GIS. This represents the beginning of an era in which spatial analysis becomes an embedded business discipline; GIS becomes the spreadsheet of the next decade.
Tom Babington is a senior consultant and Frank R. Hagy is chief information officer for the Florida League of Cities.
Reprinted from Quality Cities May/June 2004
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