Abstract
Public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) have been advanced as a means to include those who have been traditionally excluded from numerous place-specific governance activities, including planning and policymaking and as a way to resolve some of the long-standing tensions between critical traditions in human geography and the ever-expanding field of GIS. Despite the rapid adoption of participatory GIS by academics, government officials, and planning professionals, there are few guidelines of best practices for PPGIS researchers and practitioners to draw on and little effort has been made to understand how and in what ways PPGIS efforts are (or perhaps are not) effective. This article contributes to these important debates by evaluating the geography of participation in a recent participatory planning project undertaken in Muncie, Indiana. Using the mapped information that was generated from a series of public meetings, we have identified the presence of significant spatial bias in the process of participation that affected the resulting plan. This was an unexamined source of bias during this process and an example of why any emerging conversations about the best practices for PPGIS must include a consideration of the geography of participation.
Published Version
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