Technology and Institutions: A Critical Appraisal of GIS in the Planning Domain

Science, Technology, and Human Values (pre-acceptance author’s copy)

Technology and Institutions:

A Critical Appraisal of GIS in the Planning Domain

Raul P. Lejano

Abstract In this article, we take a reflective look at GIS (Geographic Information

Systems), which has captured planning practice to an unprecedented degree. In

particular, we inquire into the potential and limitations of GIS as a new form of

knowledge representation and production. Is GIS a new type of communicative practice

within which hitherto unheard narratives can be portrayed, or is it an ideological

structuration that is externally imposed? The paper argues how the assumptions and

constructs embedded in GIS constrain its capacity for critical and reflective practice. Its

power lies in mimesis as a way to map not the real but the formal, which allows it to

readily translate real phenomena into forms most amenable to institutional purposes. We

make these arguments in three stages: (i) first, we examine the fundamental epistemology

of GIS and the particular ways that it structures knowledge; (ii) second, we focus on the

internal logic of GIS and how it processes knowledge into analysis; and (iii) lastly, we

reflect on the effect of GIS on practice and, in fact, on the planner herself. We use a case

study, the Southeast Los Angeles GIS mapping studies, to demonstrate these points. All

of these work to separate the planner from real phenomena and processes that should

otherwise be the primary focus of practice. There remains, however, an unrealized

potential, in GIS, for richer representations of the normative, as well as the liberation of

alternative mappings of place and social phenomena. The article calls for a renewed,

more grounded approach to the use and construction of GIS.

I. Introduction

In this article, we comment on some particularly intriguing questions regarding

the increasingly dominant influence of GIS (geographical information systems)

in urban and regional planning. As great as the utility of GIS is, its widespread

use should nevertheless not go unreflected upon. In this paper, we focus on

some of the theoretical implications of GIS, vis-à-vis the ways it is utilized in

the practice of planning. We will argue how GIS is a particular discourse, in

which is embedded often unrecognized assumptions and constructs that can, in

many ways, dictate what is recognized as knowledge and, as importantly,

constrain the ability of the user to more richly understand place and the social

processes in it.

Social critiques of GIS began with the first commentaries on GIS's inherent

positivism in the 1990's to, more recently, a tempering of resignation to its

widespread acceptance with a call for a democratization of its use (Schuuman,

2000). In this article, we will not dwell at length on GIS' positivist framework,

nor its technocratic nature, which has been discussed elsewhere (e.g., see

Pickles, 1995; Curry, 1998). Rather, we will focus more closely on its

epistemology, specifically, the particular logics it fosters and and how this casts

its effect on the planner/mapper herself. The question is not whether GIS (and

Science, Technology, and Human Values (pre-acceptance author’s

copy)

other) mappings are social constructs or not (as discussed in Taylor, 1991; Lake,

1993; Pickles, 1995; Sheppard, 1995; Harvey and Chrisman, 1998), which they

undeniably are. Rather, what we should ask is what assumptions are embedded

in such constructions and their mappings how these affect the planner's

understanding of place and planning practice. We will probe more deeply into

its aggregative logic, inquiring into what type of claims GIS can be used for.

We will find that, unrecognized in previous critiques of GIS, is perhaps the

technology's most subtle impact, and that is the effect on the planner herself. By

building and basing analysis on the digital representation of a mental and social

construct, the mapper is separated from true integrative knowledge, which we

will call experience. In this discussion, we will specifically refer to the 'planner',

but use this term more broadly to pertain to those users of GIS who link

knowledge to action in the public sphere.

We will structure our argument in three parts:

(i) The Epistemology of GIS

First, we examine the particular ways that it structures knowledge and how this

affects our representation of nature, places, and communities.

(ii) The Analytical Logic of GIS

Second, we focus on the internal logic of GIS, with specific attention to how it

structures analysis. It is in its use for analysis that GIS possesses its greatest

utility, and where the characteristics identified in (i) are most evident. That is,

how does GIS integrate and process knowledge into claims, decisions, and

proposals for action?

(iii) The Construction of the Planner and Planning Practice

Third, we look at implications of the above arguments for the use of GIS. More

importantly, we focus on the effect of GIS practice on the planner herself.

These arguments are made both conceptually and empirically and summarized

in eight formal propositions to be developed below. We will use a case study to

make and illustrate the arguments found herein. As Schuurman has pointed out,

it is important, for both pragmatic and theoretical reasons, to ground a critique

of GIS on actual practice, at least to some extent (Schuurman, 2004). Before we

proceed to the analysis, we first introduce the case study, noting how the author

analyzed the case and linked it to the theoretical propositions.

II. Case Study

Throughout the succeeding discussion, we will refer to a case study of GIS

practice to help make and illustrate the arguments herein. The case study

involves a series of mapping exercises initiated by a community group,

Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), in Southeast Los Angeles

(SELA). The case study is a particularly suitable one inasmuch as GIS mapping

was envisioned, by CBE and its partners, as an avenue to better represent

alternative claims about the justice of land use patterns in the area. As such, this


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was a test of how GIS might be used as a new forum for communication and

knowledge-building, as GIS practitioners have long hoped.

SELA is composed of eight municipalities --a misleading description, since

these "pocket" municipalities (Bell, Bell Garden, Commerce, Cudahy,

Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, and Vernon) are so small that their

aggregate area is dwarfed by the nearby City of Los Angeles --see Figure 1

(Figure 1). SELA has the characteristics of the so-called environmental justice

situation in which, as community advocates claim, lower-income communities

of color are disproportionately burdened with environmental risks from

polluting land uses (see Bullard, 1997; Lejano, Piazza, and Houston, 2002;

Pastor, Morello-Frosch and Sadd, 2005 for useful reviews of the environmental

justice narrative). If we exclude Vernon (which is an outlier, having only 91

residents), we find that median household incomes across these small

municipalities range from $28,941 to $35,888 a year, compared to $46,452 for

the entire Los Angeles County. It is largely a community of color, with the

Latino population ranging from 82.3% to 96.3% of the residents, compared to

44.5% for the County (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2001). Importantly, SELA hosts

a bewildering array of small to medium sized industrial and commercial uses,

many of these related, in some way, to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long

Beach, the I-710 freeway which links the ports to the rest of Southern

California, and the Alameda Corridor (a rail line running through SEL). This

mix of noxious land uses has caused some advocates to refer to SELA as

"Asthmatown" (NAPS, 2003)

Beginning in the late 1990's, CBE initiated a series of collaborations with

several academic institutions on the development of new information to

convince regulators of the disproportionate burden of pollution in SELA. All of

these collaborations involved GIS in very central ways and, so, we will refer to

this series of mapping exercises as the SELA GIS mapping studies (results of

which are found in Bansal et al., 1998; Lejano and Iseki, 2002; Pastor et al.,

2005; Lejano and Smith, 2005; CBE, 2005; Lejano and Fazeli, 2005). These

series of exercises, occurring over the period from around 1997 to the present,

have involved CBE and a number of researchers, including the author. All of

these initiatives have either revolved centrally around GIS or used it as its

primary mode of representation. Chronologically, the work has entailed a series

of analyses, summarized in Figure 2. The first phase began with a simple

mapping of noxious facilities in SELA, versus the rest of the County, as shown

in Figure 3.


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Figure 1 Map of Southeast Los Angeles

Much of this analysis has revolved around GIS mapping to a striking degree. It

is only during the more recent phase (phase IV in Figure 2) of the initiative that

GIS analysis has been combined with more grounded methods such as focus

groups and participatory action research or PAR (documented in Lejano and

Smith, 2005 and CBE, 2005). The need for the more grounded type of research

embodied in PAR is understood by the author as stemming partly from the limits

of the more expert-centered model of knowledge, as practiced in GIS. In the

following discussion, we will interpose some of the products of the SELA GIS

mapping studies with the conceptual arguments. To shed insight into the

analysis, the author is primarily employing a participant-observer method of

research (Bernard, 2002), having been involved in most of the mapping

exercises, as well as the participatory action research component. Research

artifacts included meeting minutes, including tape recordings of six planning

meetings between the university researchers and CBE, journal notes maintained

by the researchers, and project output (e.g., progress reports, final reports,

research publications). Observations were made utilizing basic modes of case

study analysis, primarily thematic analysis (Yin, 2000).


Figure 2 Timeline of Research Initiatives Conducted around

Southeast Los Angeles

Figure 3 Map of Polluting Facilities in Southeast Los Angeles Versus the

Rest of Los Angeles County Source: Bansal et al. (1998)


III. Discussion

i. The Epistemology of GIS

Let us start with how GIS structures individual cognition. We might begin

with simplest observations about how GIS represents reality. Consider the map

shown in Figure 4 (a typical land use map). We see an ordered set of lines and

polygons ostensibly representing a landscape. Here, the subject/object

relationship between mapper and nature is mediated by a classifier (in this

example, a land use classifier). The perspective is, of course, that of a subject

gazing upon an inanimate world –in this case, from a height of several hundred

meters. Of course, no landscape actually resembles this checkerboard of

colored patches, but rather a projection of the subject’s mental categories.

This, along with the folding over of dimensionality onto the plane of the map,

is utterly reductionistic --but of course, this is the reason why the planner did

not use an orthographic image, to begin with. The abstraction of land use

classification allows the planner to impose her (or the organization's or social

group's) logic onto a setting of unmanageable complexity. This is a

particularly Kantian notion that, for knowledge to form, nature needs to be fit

into mental frameworks pre-constructed by the subject (Kant, 1787). Without

the pre-existing framework, there is no knowledge --extending this to GIS, we

might say that there is no reality unless it can be located on the pre-constructed

digital map. The map is reflexive, in this sense, and is a sort of cognitive

mapping that reveals not just the landscape (in fact, not even that), but

something about the mapper's mental categories --as Lakoff pointed out, an

analysis of the kinds of categories or themes we use to classify objects reveals

much about how we actually think (Lakoff, 1987). (Of course, we also note

that the planner may simply be reflecting categories imposed upon her from the

outside --in this case, the subject might be the organization, the profession, or

other actor.) In a way, GIS is also mapping the subject. To a large extent this

is aided by our tendency to use the visual as a metaphor for the mental --as

Rorty pointed out, we have always used descriptions of sight to describe mental

processes (Rorty, 1979). Take for example, the way we use the phrase "I see"

as another way of saying "I know." This intertwining of the two faculties of

sight and thought is particularly salient in GIS, in which knowledge is

associated with visualizing and locating objects on a map. More than any other

instrument of policy communication, the map translates the categorizations of

the consciousness onto the features of the landscape. By using the facticity and

immediacy of the concrete, the map reifies the mental --i.e., making mental

constructs more real by superimposing them on the landscape. We state this in

terms of the following proposition.


Figure 4 Land Use Map

Proposition 1. GIS represents the discursive as corporeal by using the

immediate facticity of the landscape.

To take an example, consider the map shown in Figure 5. This grew out of

Phase IV of the SELA initiative (see Figure 2). After mapping locations of

possibly polluting land uses in SELA (Figure 3), the next step was to convey

the sense of risk to all (i.e., agencies, the media, and especially to the residents

themselves). The analysts reasoned that the more dense the agglomeration, and

the larger the facilities, the greater the risk to nearby residents. This was used

to construct a mapping of 'cumulative risk,' which is shown in Figure 5. One

can see that the power of the map to convince is tied to its ability to simulate

the real --in this case, representing risk as if it were an actual terrain. But, we

realize that what we are representing as the real is essentially a construct

('cumulative risk') which, among an infinitude of other constructs, the analysts

used to depict risk. This operation, where the mental is imposed on the

landscape and mimics it, is a form of mimesis. By mimesis, we mean the

manner by which a symbolically generated, self-contained system can stand in

for a real, phenomenal world (see Benjamin, 1933). In this sense, this is

closely related to what Baudrillard refers to as a simulacrum, which he defines

as a copy of an original which is so far removed from nature that it cannot even

be recognized as a true copy (Baudrillard, 1994).

Essentially, the map, through a unique form of mimesis, achieves an effective

composite of narrative and reality. The problem with this, however, is that the

risk 'topography' in Figure 5 presents too real and corporeal a depiction of risk,

when it really is mapping only one specific representation of it. As discussed

below, risk, as experienced by community, is only very partially captured by

this depiction, which is perhaps too extreme a reduction of experience.

Moreover, it portrays risk as strictly a spatial phenomenon. As the focus

groups revealed in the later phases of the SELA initiative, and as we will

discuss further below, this can lead us away from appreciating the crucial, non-

spatial aspects of risk in this community.


Figure 5 Cumulative Risk Map (Southeast Los Angeles)

Source: Lejano and Smith (2005)

Let us move on to the institutional aspects of GIS. At this point, we will make

a second claim, and this is the intuition is that the inherent reductionism found

in GIS are constitutive of the planning professions, at as commonly practiced.

First, flattening out society into two-dimensional, homogenous patches of land

use, in conjunction with the elevated perspective of the plan view, provides a

planner the critical distance needed to be able to act in mediation between

society and nature. Somehow, the complexity of real situations needs to be

translated into simpler, policy-actionable forms that planners and community

leaders can implement. Second, such reductionisms reflect the context in

which many planners have traditionally found themselves. These contexts

create organizational requirements that mandate its members to categorize,

inventory, and rationalize its field of action --this is consistent with Weber's

account of bureaucratization (Weber, 1864). Perhaps tracts of land are called

parcels precisely because they can be tallied, bundled, listed, and delivered in

fulfillment of organizational mandates.

GIS reduces place to a flat plane, upon which one can more easily impose the

particular ordering principle (e.g., zoning code) established by one's institution.

More than the inherent universalism, we suggest that it is from this distance

that a planner is allowed to make any claims at all, at least formally. In order

to regulate, e.g., to set an ordinance such as "limiting R1 zones to single-family

homes only," one needs to first reduce the scene to an assemblage of land use

categories. Similarly, for CBE, there is a need to first categorize entities in the

place as "polluting sources" and "community" (later, we will see why this can

be problematic). The formal role of the planner is as one who can take such a

distance and mediate between institutions and nature. Organizationally, the

planner's specific role (but of course, not the only one) as an instrument of


authority gives rise to this function of imposing the dominant groups' meanings

on the world, primarily through classification (Douglas, 1966). This leads us to

state the second proposition.

Proposition 2. GIS allows for the efficient reduction of dimensionality that

is needed, institutionally, to translate reality into policy-actionable form --

partly because the planning professional's traditional institutional task has

been a formal one. GIS maps not the real, but the formal.

By formal, we mean the primacy of "form" or "structure" (as a land-use map

reflects a certain thematic structure). In short, maps translate, by diffraction

and re-assemblage, phenomena and spatial patterns into policy talk. Going

back to Figure 4, we recognize that the land use classification map essentially

translates the complex urban landscape of SELA into policy actionable form.

For the land use agency, policy action may entail revenue collection, which

requires a formal basis upon which to base property taxes --land use

classifications. For the group, CBE, land use designations such as shown in

Figure 4 are used to put the environmental justice narrative in terms close to the

agency's --i.e., a predominance of industrial uses embedded in the residential

zone. In all of these cases, the intent is to translate the landscape into an

institutionally actionable form. The mapping is not of the real, per se, but of

the formal. We agree with others who point out the need for an explicit

sociology of the formal (Berg, 1997) but merely comment that the formal is

clearly a tool with which power is practiced.

Let us go deeper into the way GIS represents reality. Epistemologically, GIS

forces the analyst to consider every phenomenon in spatial terms --i.e., space is

its lingua franca. This poses a number of difficulties --first, that of representing

phenomena that either are not localizable in space or do not occur within space.

The easiest example of this is the absence of the homeless in a density mapping

of residents --they, and other spatially undetermined entities, are, by definition,

unmappable and, by extension, unknowable. Beyond the localizability of

entities, we also find that GIS can overly structure analyses. Consider the ease

by which we can locate racial injustice in terms of residential segregation,

overlooking the fact that some of the most trenchant practices of injustice occur

in areas where there is no visible segregation. By structuring analysis towards

patterns over space, it expressly leaves out consideration of patterns within

space. Moreover, by utilizing space as the primary descriptive, GIS reifies

phenomena and entities as spatial attributes --i.e., characteristics or themes of

space.

The biggest danger lies in GIS' capacity for mimesis. By allowing for analysis

that uses space as the primary descriptive and operator, GIS creates the

possibility for the analyst to mistake space, as geographically constructed, for

place, as experienced. In very real ways, we face the danger of analysts

studying, planning, and designing for places without having ever set foot in

them. This mimetic illusion, along with the unmappability of the institutional,

can create analyses which suffer in relevance. This is expressed in the

following proposition.

Proposition 3 GIS represents reality by extracting space from place but, in

accomplishing this mimesis, removes linkages that might otherwise connect

analyses to institutions.

We see this in real terms if we return to Figure 5. In that map, risk was

represented as being purely a function of space. However, during the later


phases of the SELA initiative, the research team began to complement these

spatial analyses with resident interviews and focus groups, we began to see a

different picture. In these discussions and interviews, we found a number of

processes that occur within spaces, i.e., those that were unmappable. The

following is a sampling of some of these social phenomena that occur in

SELA:

Some of the risks are embedded in the community and cannot simply be

pointed out or mapped. That is, risks arise from processes that occur within or

across spaces and, as such, cannot be protrayed using mapping. For example,

some of the risks accrue because of the way residents are disenfranchised or

ignored in agency offices and other forums. This became evident when, in

subsequent conservations with residents and others, we learned that risk

occurred because SELA residents are ignored in agency deliberations, city hall,

and other forums. The result is that a land use in SELA that, otherwise, would

look exactly the same when mapped as the same land use in another part of

Southern California, might be ill-operated or maintained, less frequently

inspected, and simply dirtier (see Lejano and Fazeli, 2005 for an example of a

chrome-plating plant in SELA that turned out to be unusually polluting

compared to other similar facilities).

Some of the greatest risks occur indoors, inside homes, because of social

patterns in the community. Again, this was borne out of focus groups help

outside of the mapping studies. For example, one scenario might begin with a

parent having to keep two jobs simply to provide for her family. Day care

being largely absent in SELA, she is forced to take the child with her to work,

and it is en route to work that the child is exposed to vehicle emissions.

Some of the risks evolve because of a lack of social cohesion in the

community, due to the high mobility of its residents. As one community

member put it, "People in the southeast area, Huntington Park in particular,

tend to move into Huntington Park, stay 5 or 6 years, find a job... now they can

move. And so its very difficult to have a community where everyone cares

about their house, when they don’t have a house, they rented an apartment, you

don’t have that home ownership pride concept. They get it once they move to

Downey or Whittier, or wherever else they’re moving. In the meantime, we

have this very very temporary structure in the city of Huntington Park. So

those people, are they really gonna get involved in the politics of the schools

the city, everything else…" (personal communication with Y. Kidokoro).

Drawing a clear demarcation between "polluting sources" and "community"

is not entirely possible. As one of the planners at CBE said, "The cumulative

impact problem is very complex... You're talking about gas stations, dry

cleaners, small chromeplaters -- this is where people in the community work,

this is intertwined in people's lives... it is something that requires a lot of

participation by the community... And they participate through this process of

defining the problem and finding the solutions" (personal communication with

author). To some extent, these businesses are part of the community.

To summarize, the central issue with GIS is the problem of hypostatization,

which is the construction of a theoretical entity and subsequent treatment of

this as if it were concrete reality. This allows us to portray risk as if it were a

function of space, for example. In this section, we saw how embedded

characteristics of GIS, particularly its mimetic qualities, lead to the problem of

hypostatization. This poses particular problems in the use of GIS, particularly

in its use for analysis, which we will deal with more closely in the next section.


ii. The Analytical Logic of GIS

In this section, we focus on the use of GIS for analysis. This is appropriate,

since it appears that some of the epistemological difficulties, identified in the

previous section, manifest themselves most clearly in the operations and

products of GIS-based analysis. Analysis, moreover, is the main factor that

distinguishes GIS from simple mapping --with the advent of digital maps, the

planner is able to conduct virtual analysis in real time and, importantly,

associate vast stores of digital data with points or features on a map. With GIS,

one can do an analysis like an optimal routing scheme, for example, that would

not be possible with paper maps.

To repeat, the central problem with GIS is that of hypostatization. To develop

this notion further, we might liken the problematic to that of mythology. A

mythological system involves the construction of theoretical objects and

subsequent treatment as if belonging to nature. One can do analysis, within

this mythological plane, and generate suppositions, relations, and logical

conclusions. However, and this is a central point, such output only pertains to,

and should remain in, the realm of the mythological. That is, once we attempt

to extend, translate, or superimpose this upon nature, the relevance of these

propositions comes into question. As an analogy, we can construct a model of

society as if people were simply atoms, not forming associations, hierarchies,

or social groups. We could derive propositions for the model, e.g., that power

simply comes from the aggregation of the greatest number of atoms around a

certain proposal, but this would, strictly speaking, hold true only within the

confines of the model, and to simply extrapolate this to society is a dangerous

proposition. In fact, taken with the pre-packaged nature of datasets, the

specialized language, its assumption in most circles as a new discipline in

geography and planning, and the user's dependence on graphics technology,

GIS is rather complete as a social construction, what Latour refers to as a

"black box", which is a technology that is so complex and self-contained that

users cease to wonder about the assumptions, programs, and routines embedded

in it (Latour, 1987). When such a technology is so taken for granted, the user

can mistake for basic truth the output which, otherwise, should only be

regarded as suppositions.

As we will see in this section, this problem looms large in GIS. To begin with,

consider how analysis is classically defined, which is the peering into a

phenomenon more closely to discover truths, relationships, or patterns

embedded in it. Analysis involves finding or unearthing truths that are already

hidden in the entity being studied --in GIS, this involves conducting analysis

within and through the use of digital maps. The primacy of the visual, as a

representation of the mental, is again evident here. However, the extent to

which the mapping departs from the visual is important. Consider the change

in resolution as one shifts from near to far and back again. While, visually, one

would only need to zoom in close to achieve a refinement in level of detail, this

does not occur with GIS. Rather, the reduction of nature is irreversible. In

GIS, however, unlike the visual, what one sees has already been determined.

You cannot come down from your elevated perch to see what's there --in GIS,

there is no "there" there. Moreover, you are forced to distance yourself to

recognize any patterns at all --should you zoom in too closely, you see only

pixels (illustrated in Figure 6). This is a problem for any claim of GIS is

merely a neutral, positivist tool for observation --what we observe has already

been previously been embedded. In this sense, GIS is not a mapping of the

real, but of the formal.


This is the first analytical problem with GIS, and that is the possibility of

deriving propositions that are, in a real sense, embedded only in the model and

not in real phenomenon being modeled. This might be referred to as the

problem of mythology. In the following proposition, we will refer to this as the

problem of the "a priori analytic" --i.e., the use of the model to yield

propositions about the larger reality when, in fact, analysis only uncovers

relationships and entities that are already and only embedded in the model.

Figure 6 Depiction of Analysis in Digital Space

Proposition 4. As a tool for analysis, GIS is prone to the problem of the a

priori analytic.

The above proposition is evident in the SELA GIS mappings. Returning to

Figure 5, the mapping suggests that risk is magnified in the northern part of the

neighborhood, as opposed to the southern section. However, this is misleading

--as the focus groups informed us, much of what makes up the elements of risk

(as discussed earlier, domestic and other phenomena) are found everywhere in

this community. The mapping suggests that solutions might derive from

merely re-arranging things in space, e.g., routing pedestrians away from higher

areas of risk, or moving point sources of risk to other places. However, as the

researchers and CBE found out, in SELA, solutions ultimately come from

envisioning a change in institutions --reeducating residents to be more vigilant

of their health, providing social support services such as childcare, reeducating

agency officials to be more responsive to the most vulnerable, and others.

The problem posed in Proposition 4 is magnified when we use GIS for deeper

analysis --in this case, let us focus on the use of overlays as a way to generate

propositions in GIS. We will examine the logical operations of GIS, with the

notion that spatial and logical incoherence are manifestations of more basic

epistemological issues (e.g., Bibby, 2000) identified in the previous section.

Consider the succeeding map (Figure 7), which was one of the products of the

SELA GIS mapping studies. It is an illustration of a fairly common use of GIS

for analysis. In it, we overlay various themes and, in some cases, construct a

composite mapping. We will recognize, in it, the method of land suitability

analysis, developed by McHarg (1969) using mylar transparencies and, in later

years, resurrected with the advent of GIS. There are some things that can now

be done more effectively with GIS, such as weighting individual layers, if

desired. But, at any rate, what is it that we do, theoretically, when we overlay

themes in this manner? What do we overlay when we construct a composite,

as illustrated below?


Figure 7 Vulnerability Analysis (Southeast Los Angeles)

Essentially, the above mapping is meant to be a construction of zones of

vulnerability. In this case, the policy analyst is seeking to depict different

factors that seem to contribute to a household's vulnerability to chronic health

difficulties. For example, the above mapping suggests that low income, aging

housing stock, high proportions of children, and being of color are possible

contributors to chronic health problems such as asthma. By overlaying each

individual layer, one seeks to construct a composite that depicts those areas that

are expected to be most prone to chronic health difficulties.

Through such juxtaposition, the mapping creates an identity between possible

incomparables. It is this unquestioned equivalence, and the ability to shift and

interchange equivalences with such facility, that forms the basic logic of digital

mapping. The fact is, just because one is able to, using GIS, juxtapose and

aggregate, does not mean that there exists any meaningful "covering value" (a

term due to Chang, 1997) by virtue of which to accomplish these comparisons.


What do we do when we create a composite picture of overlaying themes? Is

this a representation of probability (in the preceding case, the probability of

injury in those vulnerable zones)? Perhaps, it is even a broader claim about the

probabilistic structure of knowledge (as Hume might suggest). We realize that

frequencies of occurrences over space (as shown in the individual themes) are

not to be confused with frequencies in the temporal/probabilistic sense.

Moreover, layers "add up" categorically, as in a level one shading in one layer

adds up with a level three category in another layer to produce a level four area

in the composite. They do not combine like probabilities (i.e., multiplicatively,

with corrections for covariation). Whether one regards the final composite as a

representation of probability or not, its inherent logic does not support it.

Let us examine the structure of its logic more closely. To begin with, what do

we assume about the nature of the phenomena being portrayed when we so

portray these as overlapping themes? First, we assume a rigid separability of

variables and this, in turn, suggests a strong assumption of variable

independence (Keeney and Raiffa, 1976). But, of course, this cannot strictly

hold --poverty and condition of housing are no more independent than

vegetation and soil moisture are. Regardless of whether one might want to find

functional forms that include interaction terms or not, the interconnectedness of

phenomena are such that they cannot be shown on a map. More than this, we

recognize in this the principle of equivalence (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1947).

Could the composite possibly be a representation of possibility? One construct

for possibility represents possibility as belief functions, and these belief

functions do combine additively (Dempster, 1968; Shafer, 1976).

Correspondingly, each layer represents the strength of one's belief that the

themes in this layer and its patterns do contribute to the phenomenon being

depicted, i.e., vulnerability. Such strength of belief is not associated with

frequencies of occurrence, but rather, occurrences in different alternative

assumption sets that support the thesis. For example, if we study mechanisms

or routes by which ill health in households are created, we ask: which of these

mechanisms incorporate housing quality in its underlying logic? However,

presence of a factor in assumption sets are not to be equated with presence in

space, which is what each thematic layer represents. Whether or not we choose

to interpret the composite as a representation of strength of belief in the

patterns being depicted, the inherent logic of the mapping runs contrary to this.

We inquire whether this perhaps is a mapping of utility. If so, what type of

utility? To investigate this, we begin with one thematic layer and note that

values seemingly need only to be ordinal, in most cases. That is, whatever

classification system is used can be unique up to any order-preserving

transformation. This seems to be consistent with the common tendency to

introduce arbitrary classes within each layer. That is, we might establish a

rating scale from 1 to 4 for the income layer, or equally valid, an alternative

rating scale of 101 to 104.

However, this gives rise to inconsistencies once we add up themes or layers.

For, here, order-preserving transformations do not preserve rankings in the

aggregated, composite layer. For the composite to preserve its properties, we

need to define each theme in terms of a more restrictive notion of cardinal

utility, i.e., values whose magnitudes convey the degree of utility. If so, then,

by constructing a composite of aggregate utility, we import a host of

assumptions for a special, even restrictive notion of utility. This strong form of

utility assumes continuity, cardinality, separability, and transferable utility (von


Neumann and Morgenstern, 1944). The point is that these strong, restrictive

notions of how to interpret the mapping is violated by the manner in which we

construct the individual layers --to begin with, the themes are not categorized

on a cardinal scale. Misinterpretations may arise from the seemingly cardinal

nature of the mapping, by which an observer might associate the shadings on a

map with densities and weight of valuation. It is this strongly aggregative logic

that GIS uses to simulate integrative logic --i.e., the integration of value

spheres that characterizes wertrationalität (Weber, 1921). Instead of

integration, GIS substitutes the ad hoc logic of the overlay. This discussion

leads us to the next principle of GIS.

Proposition 5. GIS affords a system of valuation, but one with inherent

contradictions.

We see how this poses a problem, in the case of the SELA GIS mapping

studies. Going back to Figure 7, it leads us to suppose that there is a physical

trait, called vulnerability. Moreover, vulnerability exists by having various

factors (socio-economic, housing, etc.) act in concert in order to transform

residents and households into 'damaged goods.' To some extent, people are

hurt by these factors, of course. This is not a faithful representation of reality,

however, for several reasons. First, this detracts from these residents' capacity

for agency. Thus, one is led to proposals that involve relocating homes,

neighborhood renewal, and other spatial fixes when much of the solution may

come from residents' own actions (ideally, aided by programs by the state).

Moreover, the overlay can overstress the ecological effect --that is, that there

are vulnerable places when, in reality, injuries occur on a personal and

household level (again, a denial of agency). The overlay can lead us to rely

entirely on place management, to the possible exclusion of case management.

To understand how people suffer poor health, to some extent, it is not enough

to study place, but instead, to follow actual households and individuals --i.e.,

poor health is a phenomenon that may be very individual. There may also be

some error in supposing that these factors act in concert. Again, if poor health

occurs on a highly individual level, for one household, the reason behind poor

health may be poorly maintained apartments; for another, it may be entirely

because of lack of income; for yet another, it may be due to dietary problems.

Moreover, the overlay fixes the answer to the question of what the

determinants of health are. It is possible that housing may really have no

correlation with disease, in a certain neighborhood, yet the overlay accords

housing the same import as age, income, and other determinants. Most of all,

the overlay fixes the notion of vulnerability as empirical. The ease by which

new constructs can be so simply arrived at is magnified with GIS, which allows

the almost limitless aggregation of layers in real-time (versus paper maps).

The danger is that the student of GIS mistake the ad hoc logic of the overlay for

real, grounded analysis.

Part of the critical perspective involves alienation from the alienated and, by

this principle of negation, to distinguish relative truths from false ideologies

(Horkheimer, 1974). However, we see, in the most general applications of

GIS, strong theoretical predispositions that compromise whatever critical

component there might lie in this medium. Consider, first of all, as most

evinced in Figure 7, the use of mapping as a tool for equivalence. GIS, by dint

of its ease of use and its ability to represent phenomena in spatial terms,

literally can bring diverse entities onto the same plane of exchange, even more

efficiently so than the concept of utility or commodity. The extent to which

GIS is compromised is further compounded by the strong assumptions

embedded into it by the strictures of land use planning. For example, at its


very core, GIS commits to a notion of space as location, unlike other, more

existential conceptualizations of space, e.g., as an extension of the temporal

which is the basis of one's capacity for care (Heidegger, 1962). Moreover, the

mapper commits to an association of the social with spatial, e.g., persons

associated with place of residence (sometimes referred to as the ecological

fallacy), thus legitimizing the current social order and property rights system.

In general, we note the following assumptions that are embedded in common

practice of GIS and which ineluctably compromise its critical functions.

i. that space is a medium of exchange;

ii. that space is location;

iii. that space is positive and measurable;

iv that entities are localizable and allocable over space.

In other words, to use another analogy, in the same way that markets function

to reduce everything to monetary terms, GIS functions to reduce everything to

the spatial. The primary goals, whether intended or not, is the same for the

market as for GIS, in some sense --the ability to carry out exchange. In the

market, exchange occurs with the trading of commodities and money. In GIS,

exchange is the ability to bring diverse phenomena onto the same plane --this is

how the vulnerability mapping in Figure 3 worked (although there may not be,

in real terms, any concrete connection between, say, housing and ethnicity).

This allows us to make propositions about a complex reality that we could not

otherwise. In a market economy, we can express the value of anything using

the exchange medium of currency (whether ethically defensible or not). With

GIS, we are tempted to understand all phenomena in spatial terms --whether

this might be the maintenance of pockets of poverty (e.g., the spatial mismatch

hypothesis) or environmental risk (the inequitable siting hypothesis). This

leads us to the following proposition.

Proposition 6. GIS facilitates analysis by using space as its primary medium

of exchange.

We have seen that the overlay suffers from inconsistencies, as far as being a

mode of representing the empirical. However, there is another interpretation of

this kind of mapping operation, which is an attempt to capture a reasoning that

the mapmaker employs that we might refer to as normative reasoning. In the

preceding figure, the mapmaker attempts to represent her understanding of the

right and the good. What is the structure of the normative that might be shown

with a map? Normative arguments are associative, first of all. They speak to

phenomena that coincide in space or time (such as themes on a map) and make

an accounting of such conjunction. Note that the map does not contain or show

all the possible themes, but is directed towards only those relevant to the

mapmaker's values, meaning system, and motivations. The mapmaker than

makes an accounting of these elements coming together by, for example, an

implicit or explicit comparison between the actual and the ideal. Both may be

represented on the same map, and the comparison made implicitly, or be shown

on competing maps and themes turned on and off as a way of logical

juxtaposition. The map portrays, in its way, departures from the ideal. In the

preceding figure, one normative statement that is being represented in the

figure might be stated like this:

"In a morally just society, we would not find such areas where race, poverty,

and environmental insult are systematically intertwined..."


or that, essentially, the dark areas should not be so dark, or should not be

marked out at all. Here is another possible normative statement:

"In a morally just society, processes would move outcomes away from what the

map shows, instead of further entrenching them with each land use decision.

The outcomes we see are indicative of deeply-embedded processes and

oppressions..."

Through the use of the map, the mapmaker is representing the experience of

dissonance (Festinger, 1954), in moral, cognitive, and other terms, using

legends and colors to create a cognitive device to portray such a morally

contingent position and generate the desire, on the part of the viewer, to resolve

it.

Even the admittedly non-quantitative nature of the information or the risk that

is implied can be understood as part of the structuring of the normative, as

illustrated in the following hypothetical claim.

"It is not even a matter of how much these risky facilities impact the

surrounding neighborhood --it is not a numbers game. The fact that we are

exposed to these facilities at all, regardless of quantitation, is, in and of itself,

unjust."

In this light, we see that, in such situations, there is an imperative away from a

utilitarian or other decision-theoretic approach (e.g., probabilistic), since these

other modes of reasoning cannot encompass the normative. Cardinality is

missing from the logic of the map because the underlying normative reasoning

is one that is not captured within the plane of cardinality. This suggests the

following.

Proposition 7. GIS is used, through association and juxtaposition, to

represent the normative.

The normative is also the projection of self onto the world, and is bound up

with how one conceives of one's self. So being, departure of one's immediate

physical and social environment from one's conception of self-dignity and

integrity of self registers such a discrepancy. This is represented, in Figure 3,

as a coincidence of incompatible realities (inequalities in spatial organization

coinciding with my home, which is an extension of my inviolable self). There

is still another aspect of the use of GIS for expression of the normative.

Consider that the preceding map is not only a narrative about injustice, but also

a claim to power or, at least, a shifting of power (in this case, toward the

historically and spatially disenfranchised). Indeed, various authors have

commented at length on the considerable potential of GIS for representing

social relations and reinforcing power structures (Pickles, 1995; Monmonier,

1996). We see, then, in Figure 3, a claim to territoriality or, in other words, a

discourse of power (Foucault, 1977; Lefebvre, 1991). It is the organization

claiming or reclaiming its territory. It is also a statement in an ongoing

struggle to reclaim this space. It is striking how great an extent the initiatives

in SELA have revolved around the use of GIS, but not hard to understand.

There is, in it, the claim to power, as we summarize in the following

proposition.

Proposition 8. GIS is a language of territoriality and a medium by which

territory is negotiated.


In the case of the SELA mapping studies, we can look at Figure 3 and

recognize this as not only a form of community advocacy, but as part of an

organizational strategy. This is evident in the way this same map is used in

CBE's brochures, website, etc. It is also a way for the organization to say,

"when it comes to this neighborhood, we speak with a moral authority with

which agencies and other organizations cannot."

Thus far, we have seen how GIS can introduce errors or inconsistencies in the

understanding of reality, and its representation. In the next section, we further

the analysis and consider how these effects extend to the mapper himself.

iii. The Construction of the Planner and Planning Practice

Epistemologically, GIS can move the planner away from understanding places

and processes in more phenomenological terms, as GIS substitutes the analytic

for experience and presence. GIS puts the planner back in the rarified position

of the analyst, formulating propositions about situations while being removed

from them. It enshrines the planner as expert and affirms her position within

the centralized model of the regulatory state. In this model of the planner,

knowledge is analysis, but it is not experience or participation. Where does

that bring us? At this point, we can only suggest that if there is a way out of

the hegemony of the a priori analytic, it consists in persuading the planner to

enter into the sphere of experience. This means that GIS be considered a step

in a series of integrative steps that includes powering down one's laptop and

venturing out into the streets or fields being studied. It is a framework that we

might describe as postconstructionist (Lejano, 2005) --i.e., the refusal to wholly

contain planning within the a priori analytic and the determination to ground

the analytic in experience.

The effect of GIS on practice is seen in the SELA mapping studies. Initial

analyses make purely spatial arguments, resulting in recommendations that

focused mainly on siting. For example, an earlier set of recommendations dealt

with the creation of new siting criteria (Lejano and Iseki, 2002). As we moved

beyond pure analysis and into the more grounded analysis of the latter phases

of the SELA initiative, which involved participatory action research, our

understanding of the situation changed and, with it, our proposals for action.

For example, the most recent recommendations pertain to strengthening local

institutions and reforming regulatory processes (Lejano and Fazeli, 2005).

GIS affirms the planner's role as a mediator, constructing analyses from a

neutral position (i.e., suspended between the state, on the one hand, and nature

on the other). However, we wonder to what extent GIS compromises the

planner. For example, we should reflect on the extent to which the mapper is

compromised by his dependence on datasets, polygons, census data, surveys,

projections, and boundaries determined by others and the industry at large. The

most immediate manifestation of this is the great extent to which analyses are

determined by assumptions embedded in the datalayers that one imports.

Instead of portraying the planner as architect or engineer, able to formulate

original propositions from her remote position, the mapper is more like a

bricoleur, fashioning and improvising from material that one finds in a place

(Derrida, 1978). The reification of the census tract as an actual, spatially

meaningful entity is an instance of this. Consider the extent to which analyses

of social justice have been driven by census-specified categorizations of race,

ethnicity, income, etc. Most of all, in conflating the social and spatial, GIS

mapping duplicates the reified and opaque nature of society as an object of

observation. In terms of knowledge, the planner is compromised by a pre-


commitment to measurable, pre-packaged, digital data. We cannot help but

end by noting, yet again, the strong theoretical pre-commitment of GIS to the

technological (as also discussed in Obermeyer, 1995; Clark, 1998) to the extent

of discouraging other modes of knowing, such as the narrative (Lyotard, 1974).

IV. Conclusion

We have see how GIS, despite its facility and analytic potential, is constrained

by pre-commitments that are inherently embedded in its structure, function, and

practice. Nonetheless, we suggest that the potential for GIS as a medium

within which to assist processes of communication and understanding is

considerable. Its potential for representation of the normative is, we believe,

still untapped.

There are difficulties with this medium, however, and, perhaps the greatest

danger lies in its facility and power of expression, which may tempt the student

to think that these digital maps are a substitute for deep, grounded analysis.

We have seen how GIS, by representing the discursive as corporeal, achieves

the reification of the formal. In this manner, GIS is able to construct an a priori

analytic in which claims may be largely self-referential. In this manner, GIS is

able to engage in the mythological. But this leads us to our most important

conclusion, and that is the manner that GIS, in fact, reaches back to the

mapper/planner and transforms them. We have seen how, for example, in its

use of overlays as a surrogate for integrative knowledge, GIS isolates the user

from the most legitimate source of integration: experience. GIS constructs an a

priori analytic in which all propositions can posed in circular fashion.

As technology, one cannot dismiss the potential of GIS for use in the

mythological and physical control of nature (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1972),

as an instrument of normalization and surveillance (Foucault,1977), or as

simulacrum (Baudrillard, 1994). It can be a retrogressive tool that, through its

fixative gaze, institutionalizes the status quo. And, yet, its most immediate and

deepest impact is on the mapper himself. GIS imposes itself on the mapper and

cages the latter to the formal, ocular, and cognito-spatial, shutting him out from

the real or phenomenological ecology of place. To be sure, the planner is,

almost by definition, a professional who is grounded in place, but the extreme

degree to which GIS has become a 'black box' that can so completely simulate

place can so easily lead to an analysis completely contained in GIS' self-

referential symbolic universe. It can be the negation of praxis.

Still, we cannot fail to recognize the potential for its use in the freeing up of

alternative discourses. We observe groups in society taking on this technology

--community groups, agencies, churches, and the private sector and realize its

potential as communicative media that provides space and allows voice for the

hitherto unheard. Indeed, ample scholars have written about the potential of

mapping for expression (Pickles, 1995; Cinderby, 1999; Al-Kodmany, 2001;

Elwood, 2002) and even negotiation (Harris and Weiner, 1998; Corner, 1999;

Bunschoten, 2001).

As such, it is only right to end the analysis on a hopeful note. To a great

extent, GIS has been used to broach new narratives, and planners find myriad

ways to go beyond the digital and actually encounter communities and places.

Reflecting on the SELA project over the last few years, it is undeniable that the

GIS products have helped bring a different discourse to the table. The

narratives behind maps such as shown in Figure 5 and 7 are just as important as

the maps themselves --but it is through the maps that their inclusion in the


larger negotiation, with agencies and city governments, was facilitated. Indeed,

this has led to the latest phase in the series of SELA initiatives, and it is a

collaborative with the US EPA, the regional air quality control district, CBE,

and university researchers (including the author) to study how a web-based GIS

mapping might be used to further the environmental justice agenda (phase V in

Figure 2). It is not clear to what extent the group's focus around GIS is an

overly restricting framework (for the various reasons given in this article) or

merely a stage upon which to initiate deeper communication. At this early

date, there are proposals emerging from the SELA collaborative that suggest

avenues for linking the mapping to larger institutions and place, including:

allowing residents and other publics to use the web-based map and include

features and comments of their own;

allowing map users to click on points representing polluting facilities in the

neighborhood, listing pertinent information about it and, importantly, including

an option to contact the district inspector for the facility directly by email;

using the web-based map as a common place for agencies, residents, and

researchers to pool data, observations, and other knowledge. This would be the

first such collaborative involving these agencies and is perhaps akin to what

Rowe and Frewer might refer to as an effective aggregation of diverse

knowledges (Rowe and Frewer, 2005)

We should not simply presume the planner to be helplessly trapped by the "iron

cage" of GIS (as Weber once spoke of the bureaucracy). At the same time as

planners have embraced GIS, there always remains a tradition of reflective

thought which moves the planner to view the tools of the profession critically.

Indeed, the latter phases of the SELA initiative became increasingly grounded

in community focus groups, which inevitably introduced a critical component

or, as Freire referred to it, conscientization (Freire, 1973). Moreover, as the

nature of the profession brings the planner ever more in contact with multiple

publics (e.g., neighborhood groups, public health advocates, service providers),

there are increasing tendencies for her to ground analysis in experience.

On the one hand, we should encourage the present generation of students and

advocates to learn it for its utility and potential for improving our ability to

organize information and inform discussions. At the same time, we must be

cognizant of the dominant modes of reasoning and meaning constructions

embedded in GIS that can dominate a process of claims-making and

deliberation that should otherwise be syncretic and open.


Acknowledgements

The author thanks Bahram Fazeli, Yuki Kidokoro, and Robert Cabrales of

Communities for a Better Environment for participating in the SELA studies

and their insight into the dynamics of the place, and C. Scott Smith for his help

with some of the GIS maps. The author is also grateful for the insightful

suggestions of the anonymous reviewers, whose comments added greatly to the

present paper.

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Technology and Institutions: A Critical Appraisal of GIS in the Planning Domain

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