GIS and Planning

Planning is a future-oriented activity, based ideally on shared information and the active participation and consent of all stakeholders (Nedovic-Budic, 2000). The planning realm encompasses all geographic scales from the national to the local, and combines domains of interest ranging from the natural environment, regional infrastructure, through urban and regional development and economic growth. Planning problems within the urban domain require decision-making and solutions in situations concerning urban growth and change; unemployment, decline and economic revitalization; transportation; environmental degradation; residential neighborhood decline and redevelopment; historic preservation; conservation of land and natural resources; and the provision of open space, parks and recreation facilities (Jones 1997). Alternatively the role of planning agencies may be more routine _ focusing on inventory, monitoring, regulation, and enforcement. The tasks confronting planners regularly include the sighting of new industrial areas and the reuse of old ones, the location of hospitals and other essential services, residential developments, recreation and leisure facilities and public open space. They comprise highway building and maintenance, emergency response and hazardous materials planning, zoning, and the ordinary processing of planning applications. In each case the demand for information by the planners and those for whom the plans are made is enormous (Huxhold, 1991, Martin 1996).

Access to information, the ability to process it and the generation of alternative outcomes, frequently in an iterative procedure, are essential in supporting decision-making.

Consequently, GIS is fundamental to planning for its role in maintaining databases of a wide variety of types of spatial on non-spatial data. Information integration on the basis of a shared geographic footprint is seen as one of the major strengths of GIS. Beyond data integration and access facilitation, the power of GIS as a decision support tool stems from its analytical and synthesizing potential. The value of GIS in the planning process increases directly with its ability to portray information at different scales of resolution, generate analytic solutions to planning problems and generate alternative scenarios. The role of "what if?" is nowhere more highly developed and used than within the planning context.

Ideally GIS should offer support to the planning process universally. It is often assumed that the expense of software and hardware is the bottleneck in the increased use of GIS technology in the developing world, but the lack of adequate spatial data remains the most significant constraint (Yeh 2000). In developing countries comprehensive, multi-cadastral, data are scarce. Yeh (2000, 885) comments that in developing countries the most readily available data are from remote sensing sources, leading to an emphasis on land cover rather than land use, and on physical environmental data rather than social and economic.

Socio-economic data are primarily acquired through field surveys, which are expensive, and developing countries are unable to mobilize resources to collect important statistical information. Incomplete, inaccurate, out-of-date data are unfortunately the rule rather than the exception.

Planning for Global Urbanization

The rapid growth of population and its concentration in cities around the world constitute a crucial element affecting the long-term outlook for humanity. Between 1970 and the closure of the 20^th century, urban populations increased from 35 to 50 percent of the global total. Indeed, it is estimated that more than 1.5 billion will be added to urban populations across the globe during the next 25 years, when 60 percent of all the world's people will be living in or near cities (Global Outlook, 2001; Kirdar, 1997; Rakodi, 1997). A disturbing aspect of these figures is that 90 percent of urban population growth between 2000 and 2020 will accrue in cities of the developing world. Take Africa for example, long thought of as one of the least urbanized continents, it is expected that over half the population will be urban by the year 2020 (Aryeetey-Attoh, 1997; Rakodi, 1997). This global demographic shift points to the realty that the world's problems are urban problems, the world's future is an urban one, and that cities present the arena where the battle for sustainable human development will be won or lost.

The rapid urbanization of the world's population poses new and special challenges to governments and communities around the world as they confront issues of economic, political, social, and cultural integration and transformation. As we begin the 21^st Century, new forms of globalization and technological advancements continue to blur traditional national boundaries.

Information about Cities

Contemporary urban problems include: environmental pollution (Fuchs, 1994; Kirdar, 1997); poverty, homelessness, unemployment, disease, crime, and social inequalities (Global Outlook, 2001; Kirdar, 1997; Knox, 1998; Rakodi, 1997); and poor management, land scarcity, declining resource base, civil strive, and institutional inflexibility (Leitmann, 1999; N'Dow, 1997; Stren and White, 1989; Wekwete, 1994). Too often these problems and phenomena that characterize the process of urbanization continue to be poorly documented and represented, hence depicting a distorted picture of the city. The situation is more critical among cities in the developing world where the divide between urban reality and the ability to comprehend that reality is most significant. In Africa for instance, Rakodi (1997:10) observes, "One of the most significant problems in addressing urbanization issues and in assessing the performance of urban management.... is the dearth of information". The reasons for this lack of data and the unreliability of information are well known: economic difficulties (Stren, 1994); political turmoil (Rakodi, 1997; Stren and White, 1989); war and civil unrest (Kirdar, 1997; N'Dow, 1997); and a combination of over centralization and an emphasis on rural development (Mabogunje, 1992; Obudho, 1994).

The urban information crisis in developing regions severely constrains the ability to develop and analyze effective urban policy. A sustained and systematic appraisal of urban problems, as well as tools for urban policy has been largely inadequate in providing the overall picture of the city

and how it functions. Rarely do these tools provide an indication of the relationships between the performance of individual sectors and broader social and economic development results (Leitmann, 1999). In determining the causes of urban dysfunction and in monitoring progress toward achieving sustainable cities, it is increasingly necessary to rely on effective tools to analyze the performance of cities, within countries, and on a worldwide basis.

There is a problem with reliable and appropriate data at the intra-city scale. Most major economic aggregates, which might measure the health of the urban economy such as city product, investment or trade, etc, are unavailable. Other data, which might measure the condition of the population, infrastructure and the environment, are available in some places and not others, and are seldom collected in a consistent international framework (UNCHS, 2000). Worse still, while enormous data have been generated at very high costs throughout the world, they are often incomplete, inappropriate, inaccurate, or generated for narrow planning applications. There is a global need to build national and local capacity to collect useful information on urban conditions and trends, to convert the information to knowledge through appropriate techniques, and to apply this knowledge in formulating and modifying urban policies and programs (UNCHS, 1999). This will help to resolve the information crises and close the knowledge gaps that blur the vision of city leaders and the hopes and aspirations of urban citizenry.

UN Responses and Global Urban Indicators

The Global Urban Observatory is a UNCHS Habitat's facility for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and Agenda 21. This body was born of a resolution by the 1996 UNCHS Habitat II Conference in Instabul, Turkey, that "All partners of the Habitat Agenda, including local authorities, the private sector, and communities should regularly MONITOR and EVALUATE their own performances in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda through comparable human settlement and shelter INDICATORS…" (Paragraph 240 of the Habitat Agenda). The Urban Indicators Program (UIP) and the Best Practice and Local Leadership (BLP) together make up the Global Urban Observatory. This Urban Indicators Program was born of the realization that many cities of the world (particularly the developing world) are faced with an information crisis, which seriously undermine their capacity to develop and analyze urban policy. This decentralized networking and capacity building program responds to one of the most critical needs of urban policy _ the need for better information on urban conditions and trends.

The meaning and role of indicators has thus been defined: `...a measure that summarizes information about a particular subject and may point to particular problems … (and) provides a reasonable response to specific needs and questions…" (UNDP, 2000). Regardless of the definition, literature has demonstrated that various indicators based on easily obtained data can offer useful intelligence for making strategic choices about directing and managing future growth.

Furthermore, while indicators primarily show trends, prioritize and define targets, provide qualitative and quantitative information etc, (Barnejee, 1996; Leitmann, 1999), they can also be more than pieces of information if designed in response to well defined policy objectives (Global Outlook, 2000; Sawicki and Flynn, 1996).

In a special issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association devoted to a discussion of indicators, Banerjee (1996:222) summarized the purposes of indictors as:

To measure performance of policies and programs; to examine trends; to monitor the condition of a city or a region; to inform decision-makes; to raise awareness of the public; to define targets; to set planning objectives; to compare localities horizontally (across space) or longitudinally (over time); to raise flags in an early warning system; to guide strategic investment choices; to challenge conventional wisdom; and so forth.

Similar views are shared by Sawicki and Flynn (1996) and Leitmann (1999) who feel that indicators must be capable of affecting citizen action and public policy making, and hence must be formulated through a broad-based partnership approach involving all levels of decision-making and all stakeholders. However, it has been argued that stakeholder participation in this process has always remained questionable as experts dominate the scene (Leitmann, 1999).

In a more detailed fashion, Leitmann (1999) elaborates the need for stakeholder participation in the development of indicators and the problems that beset this phase. Noting that urban indicators must be linked to the development process, the author emphasizes that a realistic set of urban indicators should be:

"…measurable, based on existing data, affordable, based on a time series, quickly observable, change sensitive, widely accepted, easy to understand, and balanced" (Leitmann, 1999:168). From this discussion, and elsewhere in the literature, it is seemingly apparent that urban indicators involve measurement, and so their validity and meaningfulness in planning is critical and must be within specific contexts — scale, scope, institutional setting, history etc (Banerjee, 1996; Global Outlook, 2001; Leitmann, 1999; UNCHS, 2001). Similarly, the geographic unit of analysis (household, census block, block group, tract, neighborhood, city, county, state, and nation) and the scale at which the data are reported (neighborhoods in one city, all states in a nation etc) must be a central consideration in the creation of such databases (Leitmann, 1999; Sawicki and Flynn, 1996).

It is agreeable that there is no ideal "objective" set of indicators or criteria for developing indicators. Too often, experts in a top-down fashion clearly distanced from the people whose quality of life is being assessed formulate urban indicators. Nevertheless, the United Nations has provided a broad framework from which all nations can base their selection depending on their respective local settings. For instance, in preparation for the HABITAT II conference and the subsequent implementation of the HABITAT agenda, the UNHCS short-listed six key urban indicators as:

From this initial list, an extensive list has been developed under the six categories to comprise of over a hundred and twenty (120) sections (Leitmann, 1999; UNHCS, 1997).

Geographic Information Systems and Urban Indicators

Geographic Information Systems have been commonly used for urban applications such as comprehensive planning, hazard and environmental `hot-spot' identification, zoning, land use inventories, land use and land cover mapping, site suitability assessments, socio-demographic analysis, management of infrastructure, change analysis, as well as other more sophisticated analytical applications (Barnejee, 1996; Leitmann, 1999; Nedovic-Budic, 2000; Maclaren, 1996; Ryznar and Wagner, 2001). GIS has, indeed, become an ideal tool for planners and policy makers (Leitmann, 1999).

The spatial nature of urban phenomena prescribes the use of geospatial technologies in urban management. GIS analysis is mainly used during the informed consultation phase to generate physical and social information, including key correlations, and for monitoring the implementation of plans in cities. Sawicki and Flynn (1996) engaged a thorough conceptual and theoretical examination of the literature where they identify urban environmental indicators as the precursors of neighborhood indicators in the United States. To illustrate the relevance of GIS, it is argued "With many records located in space, the GIS can then aggregate them to any level of geography: city blocks, neighborhoods, census block groups, tracts, municipalities and counties (Sawicki and Flynn, 1996:166).

Furthermore, the analytical capabilities of GIS have made the technology more than just a communicative visual tool hence most applicable in the development of indicators for evaluating urban policy and the quality of our cities. This way, the use of the technology would fall within the five geographic information science (GIScience) potential areas for planning as identified by Nedovic-Budic (2000:82): database development, integration of geospatial technologies with urban models, building of planning support systems, facilitating discourse and participation, and evaluating planning practice and technological impact.

Applications of GIS have recently disseminated to developing nations in general and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular (Conitz, 2000; Gar-On Yeh, 1991; Hastings and Clark, 1991). It is evident however that the levels of adoption have varied across the continent with richer countries (South Africa for instance) far much ahead of poorer ones (such as Mozambique). Despite the rapid adoption, the use of the technology has tended to reside in externally funded projects or state agencies and rarely is it owned and used by people at the grassroots. Similarly, there has not been a coordinated style of adoption and use in many countries. Although local authorities in different countries in Africa have engaged GIS at different levels, enormous gaps in information and citywide data have become commonplace. In this project, GIS is used for the development of baseline spatial data for the city of Beira, Mozambique, and the analysis of this information for policy formulation and evaluation purposes.