URISA (1994), p875-886, copyright Urban and Regional Information Association
Abstract:The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate students in this project developed a process of training neighborhood residents in the use of GIS software. The residents from this older urban neighborhood, are now able to view and make better use of publicly accessible city property data files. This ability provides them with the opportunity to do their own analysis of what has happened and what is happening, so that they can decide, plan and set policy for what should happen within their neighborhood in the near and distant future.
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In the Fall of 1993, eight graduate students in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of Urban Planning's course in Applied Projects in Urban GIS, approached residents of the Metcalfe Park Neighborhood with a proposal. Would the residents be interested in learning GIS? Would the residents be interested in seeing a tool that can help them more easily access, view, and then use public information? Would the people living in Milwaukee's toughest inner city neighborhood be interested in having access to this tool, with training on how to use it, to help them with the problems they are addressing?
The Metcalfe Park Residents Association accepted the proposal. Nine residents of the housing subcommittee group volunteered to participate in the project. The students immediately began work on the technical task of creating a GIS for the Metcalfe Park Neighborhood.
While this work continued, the students and residents met. They first met to discuss the scope of the project and to determine the resident's data needs. The next three meetings followed a process of paper-to-computer exercises designed to show the progression of moving from paper lists and maps, to computer databases, and then to a GIS where the data is linked to maps. This process was based loosely on Bill Huxhold's GIS County exercise (Huxhold, 1991, p.142). This process also attempted to demonstrate how one can begin with raw data, analyze this data to gain useful information and then use this information to gain knowledge, take action and solve problems.
The residents then began their training in the use of the GIS software. The four training sessions successfully provided the basic skills needed to use the software. The training also attempted to communicate to the residents the concept of GIS and its application in their planning and decision-making. The visual display of spatial data made the public information more accessible to them; residents without prior computer experience could more quickly and easily view city data files in tables or on maps. The GIS software capabilities made this public information more usable; with the information gained through analysis, residents could take a more informed and rational approach to addressing problems that enhance their own experiences, knowledge and values.
The neighborhood residents that participated in this project are now better able to communicate with both other residents (insiders) and with people who do not live there (outsiders) about what has happened and what is happening to their neighborhood on a variety of issues. Most importantly, the residents can now begin to plan for what should happen in their neighborhood based on their diverse wants, needs, assets and constraints.
With these basic skills and powerful GIS tools, residents are more likely to
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influence where resources are allocated and to whom the resulting costs and benefits are distributed. This is meaningful resident empowerment. The participation of residents of older urban neighborhoods; increasingly people of color, renters, youth, elderly and the poor, (groups that have often been excluded from traditional planning), in this decision-making process is essential to creating lasting and equitable solutions to our existing urban problems.
Metcalfe Park is a mixed residential and industrial neighborhood in the central city of Milwaukee. The boundaries are 27th Street, North Avenue, 39th Street and Center Street. The neighborhood is bisected by the 30th Street industrial corridor, where the Master Lock, Steeltech and other companies are located. The bulk of the remaining land is in dense residential use and the streets are lined with "Milwaukee Duplexes." The poverty rate in this neighborhood is extremely high (54%) and consists of a majority of single parent families living in rented duplexes. The majority of Metcalfe Park residents are African American.
This neighborhood, like many areas of the central city, has experienced a litany of urban problems in the past 30 years. Disinvestment, crime, boarded-up buildings and vacant lots are visible throughout the neighborhood. Since 1990 the City of Milwaukee has tried to address these problems within Metcalfe Park and establish a model that can be applied to other neighborhoods within the city. The Metcalfe Park Residents Association was created by the city as part of this effort.
Recently, the City of Milwaukee has invested over a million dollars in housing and infrastructure redevelopment projects throughout the area. For example, the Central City Initiative (CCI) is a redevelopment project that combines HOME funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to rehabilitate housing and promote home ownership. Metcalfe Park was chosen as one of two pilot neighborhoods for this new program.
The Metcalfe Park Residents Association consists of a board of directors and sub-committees on housing, crime, and sanitation. This board appoints residents to the Development Advisory Group of the CCI program. Therefore, the residents participating in this project have an organizational structure already in place and have been working on the urban problems for quite some time. The majority of this resident group are homeowners with little or no experience with computers.
As stated in the introduction the central idea of the project was to create a process for making use of GIS as a planning and empowerment tool by neighbor-
hood residents so that they can make their own decisions about resource allocations
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in their neighborhood. Bringing the technology and resources of the university to the neighborhood, creating the GIS, training the residents, and learning how to act in a supportive capacity to the residents, were all very challenging tasks.
The following sections of this paper will share some of those challenges, describe the process and technology used, and give some suggestions for those who wish to undertake a similar project.
GIS computer software is now available that makes use of windows, rather than just key commands, for people who wish to use GIS. This more user-friendly graphic software is making GIS more accessible to the general public. A great deal of technical work by highly skilled people is still required however to create the maps, databases and systems that make this possible. Therefore, before the neighborhood residents could make use of the new GIS software, the student team had to create a GIS basemap and database for Metcalfe Park.
Creating the GIS for Metcalfe Park required a digital map of the area, a database containing the information the residents wanted, and the computer equipment to geocode or link these two. The geocoding, making the map and the database interactive, is the essence of GIS and what makes it so useful.
A digital map of the Metcalfe Park neighborhood was obtained from the Information Systems Division of the City of Milwaukee. The City provided digital quarter section maps, "1/2 mile by 1/2 mile square graphical representation of the legal surveys of the land showing all the parcels of property in that area. The Metcalfe Park boundaries were within three adjacent quarter sections (numbers 325, 326 and 327). These separate quarter sections were joined together, edited and parcels checked for changes in ownership. The topology of the map was then built, making each parcel into a polygon with its own internal identification, to give the computer the ability to identify the logical relationships between objects on the map. Lastly, the digital map was edited to eliminate the area outside of the Metcalfe Park boundaries.
The MPROP database was chosen to be the major data source in response to the needs assessment and resident's requests. MPROP is the Milwaukee Master Property File that was obtained from the Real Estate Master File (RealMast), built for the City for tax assessment purposes. In this file, each parcel of land is identified with a unique taxkey number, and various types of information about that parcel are given such as, ownership data, zoning, land use, assessed value, and many other fields of data. This data was extremely useful to the residents for their work on housing issues. The residents had been using some of this data already, put were getting the data through a very time consuming and cumbersome process of visiting City Hall and tracking it down from department to department.
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In addition to MPROP, the residents created their own databases. The first database contained information they collected on vacant and boarded-up homes in the area conducted through windshield surveys in 1991, 1992 and 1993. The second database was built with data gathered from sanitation surveys where the residents recorded which parcels had problems with loose garbage, abandoned cars, fallen trees or overgrown vegetation, and tires or hazardous waste. The third database recorded the names and addresses of the residents participating in the Residents Association so that the group could map and analyze who was or was not participating.
These databases could now be linked to the Metcalfe Park digital map. To accomplish this geocoding the City _Pts file was obtained from the city. This file contained locational points with x-y coordinates attached to them. These points were matched with the internal identification of the parcel polygons of the digital map, a shared feature. These files and the MPROP database were then joined and checked for any errors. The digital Metcalfe Park map and the MPROP database were now linked and interactive. To geocode the resident's own databases and the digital Metcalfe Park map, the common feature of address was used to do the matching.
While the work on the creation of the Metcalfe Park GIS was in progress, the project team was meeting with the residents to introduce the concepts of GIS, first on paper and then on computer.
The first activity was to simulate a GIS using paper maps. This was done using a neighborhood survey. Project team members and residents walked through the neighborhood, collecting data on boarded-up properties, vacant lots, and sanitation problems. These were noted by address. Later, the information from the survey was transferred to a paper map of the neighborhood, using colored dots to represent various conditions. This introduced the residents to the concept of spatial analysis, as the colored dots allowed them to see patterns of board-up properties, vacant lots, and sanitation problems that they did not see while walking through the neighborhood. An example of the paper map used by the residents can be found on the following page.
The next step was to introduce the residents to the MPROP database. This was done at the Milwaukee Associates for Urban Development (MAUD) data center. The residents were first introduced to the paper form of MPROP consisting of numerous boxes of computer printout. Each resident looked up his or her house in the printout. Then Dr. Michael Barndt, Data Center Director, demonstrated a computer interface to the MPROP. This allowed the residents to see how the computer simplified and speeded up the research process. Now the residents had seen how presenting data spatially made analysis easier, and how computers sped up the process of gathering information. The next step was to combine the two lessons.
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The residents began their training in the use of ArcView(TM). Four training sessions were organized, each a little more detailed than the last. Lessons presented at previous training sessions would be covered first, in order to reinforce previously learned skills.
The training sessions were conducted in the GIS lab of the UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning. The basic setup used was to have a computer hooked up to an overhead screen with all residents being able to view the screen. Two residents would be at each computer, with members of the project team available to offer assistance. At the first training session, the overhead projector was unavailable, so each computer was assigned a member of the project team to give individual instruction. This system worked so well that it was employed at the remaining sessions. The basic system was one of hearing, seeing, and doing. The residents would hear a description of the lesson, see it demonstrated, and try it themselves (Arnold, 1991, p.25).
The first training session (November 18, 1993) concentrated on basics. First was an introduction to computer use. This included defining various terms such as keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and instruction in techniques such as pointing and clicking a mouse. Once that was accomplished, the training team introduced the residents to ArcView(TM). This included how to start the program, elements of the various windows, menus and their use, and the basics of building a theme. This session was necessary to bring all the residents (most of whom had never used a computer) up to speed on the basics of computer use. The end product of the session was construction of a theme (land use for example), and printing of a map.
At the second training session (December 2, 1993), the residents learned how to analyze the data using ArcView(TM) 's Query function. The goal was to introduce the residents to some of the spatial analysis functions of ArcView(TM), such as color, legends, and class values. While the overhead was used at this session, individual team members still paired up with the residents for extra assistance. This training session demonstrated the capabilities of GIS to the residents, who could then see the possibilities this software offered to their organization.
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The third training session (December 9, 1993) helped the residents use GIS to analyze a problem specific to their neighborhood, get a feel for the limitations of the City's data, and find out how to work around those limitations. The primary focus of this session was to gather information about properties owned by certain problem landlords. Here, the trainer took the suggestion of the residents and began to build a query for a certain landlord. After the residents completed this step, the trainer demonstrated the various methods landlords used to confuse the City's records, and then demonstrated the various ways ArcView(TM) could broaden its search to take in those altered names. By using this method, the number of identified properties increased tremendously. The thing that interested the residents most, however, was the ability to get a visual record of these properties within minutes. Every one of the residents saw properties that they didn't know were owned by the landlord in question. By the end of the session, the residents were building their own queries covering topics from slum landlords to building code violations. For the first time, the residents were starting to receive the information they said they wanted at our first meeting.
The fourth training session (December 16, 1993) was structured somewhat differently and attempted to make the connection back to the paper maps with which the process had started. Here the emphasis was on using the printed maps and tables, whether done by hand or computer, to do spatial analysis. Discussion mainly focused on what the patterns on the maps meant, and what the residents could do with this information. The residents' first surveys were shown in computer maps. How to use the sanitation survey to get city action was also discussed. An example of the sanitation survey map follows this page.
In general, the residents found; that the city keeps a tremendous amount of data that they could use for their purposes, that they as residents had a wealth of specialized knowledge about their neighborhood that could not be found in city records,
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and that they were able to find instances where their information was more accurate than the city's. This session ended the initial phase of the project. The project team and the residents then discussed plans for the second, or continuing, phase of the project.
The Metcalfe Park Housing GIS Project entered a new phase in the spring of 1994. Through the generosity of ESRI, the Residents' Association is in the process of obtaining a copy of the ArcView(TM) software, and the UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning has loaned the residents a computer. The computer will be kept in the Metcalfe Park Police Substation, where it will be convenient for the residents to use. Training sessions will be continued, and the project team will continue to maintain the data until new software is obtained, and the residents will be able to continue on their own. The residents will have full access to the MPROP database and will be able to continue the process of monitoring, updating and developing maps to analyze the data and the changes in their neighborhood.
In addition, the residents with the students will continue the sanitation survey. The survey is currently being done on a quarterly basis. Efforts are being made to gear the survey to correspond to the different City Departments responsible for sanitation clean-up. The changes in the survey revolve around the fact that residents found that the Department of Public Works does not clean-up toxic materials. Items such as tires and paint must be disposed of by contracted specialists. The April sanitation survey will also include gang graffiti identification to report to the gang crime's unit of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) and Social Development Commissions' Youth Diversion program. These developments mean that the residents can generate more specific maps and tables to more powerfully communicate their concerns to those responsible for sanitation services. This survey and its reworkings are an example of how the process has matured and adapted to more effectively deal with the residents' wants and needs in a changing context.
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The scope of the process has expanded to include the issue of crime. Residents are finding a great need to be able to understand crime patterns in their area. Foot
patrol officers, block watch captains, mobile watch participants and other residents involved in community policing efforts could greatly benefit from seeing the incidence of crime and patterns of crime over time displayed spatially. The development of a crime incidence database is being developed to be able to give address specific data to disseminate to persons involved in community policing in the Metcalfe Neighborhood. The participation of two MPD officers in the project, and the proximity of the Residents Association meeting space and the Milwaukee Police Department Substation, first and second floors of the same duplex, presents a unique opportunity for the residents to obtain the appropriate information to be able to do spatial analysis of crime data.
The process of developing crime incidence maps will be similar to the sanitation survey work by the residents. A database will be kept by the residents and address matching of crimes will be done on GIS. Monthly maps will be produced and kept at the substation. These maps will allow community policing persons to be able to analyze the spatial data over time. Through this analysis, the residents will be better able to identify for themselves things such as clustering of certain types of crimes, trends of all crimes and the individual crimes over time, where armed crime is happening, if drug houses are in neighborhood, and be better able to communicate with others their ideas, priorities and concerns in addressing these problems.
It is anticipated that many other issues and combinations of issues will be addressed, and many other neighborhood residents who have not yet had the opportunity will participate and be heard. This process is designed to be flexible enough to address numerous issues (GIS makes this possible) and inclusive enough to include the all the subgroups of people that make up the term "resident" in our diverse older urban neighborhoods.
All the initial indications are that the project has been a success. The residents are using their GIS to address new issues and in greater detail. More residents want to get involved and be trained so they can use their GIS. The students are continuing to work with the residents long after the course is over and the grades turned in. Other organizations and institutions want to get involved and participate.
This project has achieved three critical accomplishments. First, it has successfully applied GIS in a new context, giving citizens with little or no previous computer experience a powerful tool that they can use in their ongoing efforts to solve real and often complex problems within their neighborhood. The participation of and knowledge shared by the residents of this older urban neighborhood will likely result in more resources and the better use of these resources to more effectively and equitably solve the chronic urban problems present in this neighborhood and else-
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where. Second, this project establishes a model process for applying GIS to neighborhood planning and community development. This model establishes a process that can lead to meaningful citizen participation, especially by those groups of people who have traditionally been excluded from the planning process (McGinniss,1987, p.1). This project established a model for the role university institutions and urban planning experts can play in addressing the problems of older urban neighborhoods. Third, this project has built a relationship between the residents and the students where both groups benefit greatly from the exchange of knowledge and experiences.
Arnold, Rick et al, 1991. Educating For Change, Between the Lines and The Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action, Ontario, Canada.
Huxhold, William E., 1991. An Introduction to Urban Geographic Information Systems, Oxford University Press, NY. pp. 67 & 142.
McGinniss, Grace Jordan and Steven Gray, 1987. "Including Everyone: Ensuring Neighborhood Organizations Represent the Neighborhood." Rainbow Research, Inc. Minn., MN. April Issue.
The project participants wish to thank Professor William E. Huxhold and Mark Roth of the UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Professor Michael Barndt and Chris Wenders of the Milwaukee Associates in Urban Development (MAUD) Data Center, and Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) for their generous assistance.
Resident Team Members: * Willie L. Barnett * Brad Hausler * Edgar Bullock * Willie F. Hutchins * Rosi Butler * Vera Mannery * Tyran G. Green * Murray Pugh Student Team Members: * Kurt Davis * Dale Mohr * Rina Ghose * Dave Morck * Ernest Haffner * Jim Myers * Michael Martin * Brenda Werner
All of the student team members contributed to this article.
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