Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 The impacts of neighbourhood in Minneapolis GIS use for revitalization Sarah Elwood 6.1 INTRODUCTION1 The use of GIS by community organizations working to improve conditions in US urban areas, particularly distressed inner-city neighbourhoods, has been a central focus in debates about the potential of this technology for marginalization and empowerment (Sawicki and Craig 1996; Barndt 1998; Elwood and Leitner 1998; Ramasubramanian 1998; Ghose 1999; Elwood 2000). The literature provides rich description of the ways in which these community groups experience unique needs and constraints with respect to gaining access to and using this technology. Nonetheless, the use of GIS by these organizations is proliferating rapidly. The primary purpose of this chapter is to describe the use and impacts of GIS in neighbourhood improve-ment efforts. This information is drawn from participant observation, archival research, and intensive interviews I conducted with a Minneapolis inner-city neighbourhood group. After a brief description of neighbourhood conditions and concerns, I describe the organization’s strategies for gaining access to GIS, outlining factors that have facilitated and limited their access to and use of GIS and digital data. Then I examine their application of these tools to critical issues, and discuss some of the impacts of these efforts on participation and power within the neighbourhood. 6.2 GIS USE IN COMMUNITY-BASED HOUSING IMPROVEMENT Powderhorn Park is a neighbourhood in south central Minneapolis, centered around a large park with a lake (Figure 6.1). With the exception of its northern border, which is a major commercial corridor for the city, the neighbourhood is largely residential. Powderhorn Park’s approximately 8,000 residents are multi-racial and multi-ethnic, and the neighbourhood is home to a growing number of recent immigrants from around the world. The neighbourhood faces a familiar set of inner-city concerns, including loss © 2002 Taylor & Francis 78 S. Elwood Powderhorn Neighbourhood E. Lake St. Powderhorn Park Powderhorn Lake E. 36th St. Minneapolis Figure 6.1 The Powderhorn Park neighbourhood is south of downtown Minneapolis. of business and employment opportunities, a relatively high crime rate, and declining conditions in its ageing housing stock. In spite of these problems, the neighbourhood is a vibrant and active place in which many residents are active in trying to improve conditions. Residents have created flower and vegetable gardens and art parks on many of the neighbourhood’s vacant lots. The neighbourhood hosts numerous community events intended to build ties among residents – an annual May Day parade, summer campouts in the park, and several cultural festivals throughout the year. The Powderhorn Park Neighbourhood Association (PPNA) is the primary insti-tution through which these and other neighbourhood organizing and improvement efforts are coordinated. PPNA is directed by an elected board of neighbourhood residents, and residents serve on various committees that work on multiple issues in the neighbourhood, including housing improvement, community and economic development, environmental improvement, transportation planning, and family and youth support. The organization employs six staff members, some of whom are neighbourhood residents, and others who are not. PPNA’s efforts are funded through a combination of foundation grant support, community development block grant funds, and funds from Minneapolis’ Neighbourhood Revitalization Program (NRP).2 As part of NRP, the neighbourhood created a comprehensive neighbourhood revital- © 2002 Taylor & Francis The impacts of GIS use in Minneapolis 79 ization plan addressing the issues mentioned above, and PPNA has been coordinating the implementation of this multi-faceted plan. In the past five years, PPNA has begun to use a range of different infor-mation technologies, including GIS, digital databases, the Internet, and e-mail to support a wide range of activities in the neighbourhood. In this chapter, I will focus on their use of GIS and digital databases in housing improvement efforts, a major emphasis of PPNA’s activities in the neigh-bourhood. As part of its NRP revitalization plan, PPNA obtained MapInfo GIS software, and developed a digital database that is referred to as the housing database. PPNA’s housing database includes administrative infor-mation gathered from local government sources that describes land and structures in the neighbourhood, names and contact information for indi-viduals connected to these properties, and textual notes concerning PPNA’s involvement with these properties or individuals (see Table 6.1 for a more detailed listing of these data attributes). The textual notes may contain, e.g. notes that a resident has volunteered to translate for non-English speakers at PPNA meetings, or that a house was recently re-roofed using a PPNA housing repair grant. It is important to note that the housing database includes information obtained from the City of Minneapolis as well as information gathered from residents of Powderhorn Park. A major concern raised in critical studies of information technologies has been the exclusion of such ‘local knowledge’ from digital databases and GIS and by extension, exclusion of local residents from planning processes that make use of these technologies (cf. Rundstrom 1995). A major element of Harris and Weiner’s (1998) con-ceptualization of a community-integrated GIS is the notion that such a GIS will incorporate local expertise, rather than privileging the ‘expert’ know-ledge of government actors or professional planners. PPNA’s efforts to include both government-generated data and local knowledge in their digital databases represent one way in which their GIS efforts might be considered to be community-integrated. While many small community organizations gain access to GIS and digi-tal data through secondary agencies that assist or collaborate with them, PPNA’s GIS use has been an independent, neighbourhood-guided initiative. The organization has funded acquisition of its own hardware and software, and residents and staff members have gathered primary and secondary source data for PPNA’s databases. PPNA’s success in gaining access to GIS and digital data speaks to the comparative advantages of the local context in which they are situated. The City of Minneapolis strongly supports neighbourhood planning and organizing, and as a consequence Minneapolis neighbourhood groups are relatively well-funded and are included as valued contributors in urban planning efforts. Both the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County have been willing to share their digital data with neighbourhood organizations. These aspects of the local context © 2002 Taylor & Francis 80 S. Elwood Table 6.1 Data attributes of PPNA housing database Property Lot size* Zoning* Property ID number* Age of structure* Condition code* Legal description* Tenure status* Tax delinquent status* Sales history Involved individuals Owner/Taxpayer · Name* · Address* · Phone number* · PPNA involvement · Volunteer skills Rental License Holder* · Name* · Address* · Phone number* · PPNA involvement · Volunteer skills Caretaker/Manager · Name · Address · Phone number · PPNA involvement · Volunteer skills Block Leader · Name · Address · Phone number · PPNA involvement · Volunteer skills Tenants · Name · Address · Phone number · PPNA involvement · Volunteer skills Activities/Problems Past problems PPNA actions Staff/Resident observations * Indicates attributes for which data are obtained from local government sources and are maintained for all neighbourhood properties. All other information is locally collected and is known for some, but not all, properties in the neighbourhood. have fostered PPNA’s ability to obtain its own hardware, software and data, as well as their success in using these IT resources to address critical hous-ing concerns in the neighbourhood. Regardless of these comparative advantages, PPNA still experiences some difficulties in its use of GIS. Technical problems in the design of the hous-ing database have meant that the process of importing these data for use in MapInfo is quite complicated and time-consuming. Only one PPNA staff member received extensive training in using MapInfo, and this staff mem-ber has had little opportunity to teach staff members or resident volunteers about GIS. Staff members did not receive training from the housing data- © 2002 Taylor & Francis The impacts of GIS use in Minneapolis 81 base programmer as to how to import updated government information into the database. These problems emerge from a complicated nexus of financial, time, and training barriers experienced by many community and non-profit organizations that seek to use ITs. PPNA staff members who have been involved in design and use of the organization’s databases and GIS do not have extensive experience in these areas, and they have limited time to devote to learning new procedures and techniques for information management and analysis. These barriers have constrained PPNA’s use of its GIS software, and much of their ‘analysis’ of data held in the housing data-base occurs through simple direct querying of the housing database and examination of the resulting selections of data. In spite of these limitations, PPNA has used the housing database and GIS successfully to address several critical housing issues in Powderhorn Park. They have been used most extensively in making plans for the hous-ing improvement in the neighbourhood. For example, in 1998, PPNA’s Housing and Land-Use committee relied extensively on analysis of these data to inform their efforts to design different kinds of grant and loan pro-grammes to assist residents in making housing improvements in the neigh-bourhood. Since PPNA’s digital databases have been used to maintain data on housing conditions for all properties in the neighbourhood, the organ-ization was able to, for the first time, conduct comprehensive geographic analysis of housing issues in the neighbourhood. This comprehensive geo-graphic analysis strongly informed the programmes designed by the Housing and Land-Use committee. For instance, a staff member’s analysis showing the concentration of dilapidated rental properties along the neigh-bourhood’s major transportation corridors inspired the committee to design assistance programs specifically targeted to the improvement of rental prop-erties – not only through provision of repair funds but also by creating a rental property owners’ forum in which landlords could meet to discuss strategies for resolving common problems. In another instance, the Housing and Land-Use committee relied on data from the housing database to design housing improvement strategies that they felt targeted areas of the neighbourhood in greatest need. The housing organizer explained, ...the committee looked at maps that showed housing condition decline and housing stability and they looked at the numbers of boarded and vacant [houses], and the number of absentee rental properties. And what happened from that was a direct campaign to improve the 3000 and 3100 blocks of the neighbourhood. So we created a special housing repair program for that area, and focused [a housing program] there. So housing development, housing information, and housing grants and loans were focused in that area. Meghan,3 personal interview 1999 © 2002 Taylor & Francis ... - tailieumienphi.vn