Abstract

The Franks Tract State Recreation Area (Franks Tract) is an example of a complex contemporary park mired in ecological and socio-political contestation of what it is and should be. Located in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it is a central hub in California’s immense and contentious water infrastructure; an accidental shallow lake on subsided land due to unrepaired levee breaks; a novel ecosystem full of ‘invasive’ species; a world-class bass fishing area; and a water transportation corridor. Franks Tract is an example of an uncommons: a place where multiple realities (or ontologies) exist, negotiate and co-create one another. As a case study, this article focuses on a planning effort to simultaneously improve water quality, recreation and ecology in Franks Tract through a state-led project. The article examines the iterative application of participatory mapping and web-based public surveys within a broader, mixed method co-design process involving state agencies, local residents, regional stakeholders, consultant experts and publics. We focus on what was learned in this process by all involved, and what might be transferable in the methods. We conclude that reciprocal iterative change among stakeholders and designers was demonstrated across the surveys, based on shifts in stakeholder preferences as achieved through iterative revision of design concepts that better addressed a broad range of stakeholder values and concerns. Within this reconciliation, the uncommons was retained, rather than suppressed.

Highlights

  • We detail the SoftGIS and other co-design research methods that were applied in the Franks Tract Futures (FTF) park planning effort

  • In their review of two decades of participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) application, Brown et al argue that “the mapping of place values will need to become more than a spatial technology enhancement to public participation, but a political force that can compete against powerful interests that currently dominate land-use decision processes at multiple levels of government [47]

  • SoftGIS supported the iterative creation of relatively inexpensive surveys by members of the planning team as well as the creation of online visualization tools

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Summary

Introduction

The Franks Tract State Recreation Area occupies two flooded areas of formerly reclaimed land, Franks Tract (3000 acres flooded since 1938) and Little Franks Tract (330 acres flooded since 1982), hereafter collectively referred to as Franks Tract, located in the Western Sacramento-San-Joaquin Delta of California (Delta) (Figure 1). These shallow, tidal lakes-novel to the Delta-were created after multiple levee failures, after which they were abandoned. They have since evolved into a major water recreation and navigation hub for the entire Delta. Franks Tract is dominated by predatory introduced species that thrive in these altered conditions, such as black bass, which support economically significant

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