Let the Citizens Map—Public Participation GIS as a Planning Support System in the Helsinki Master Plan Process

Abstract

Current public participation methods are laborious, reach few participants and are ineffective at gathering usable information for planning. This situation leads often to mistrust and dissatisfaction in the process and outcome. This article identifies the critical conditions for meaningful use of public participation GIS (PPGIS) tools to support the making of master plan in Helsinki. With PPGIS tools, residents’ insight of their living environment can be reached and utilized along the planning process. The results are divided to conceptual and empirical points. Whereas the conceptual points emphasize better understanding of the locus of the PPGIS tools in planning process, the empirical findings reveal new ways to study how residents’ perceptions align with the plan proposal. Though new tools, data and analysis can support representativeness, independence, early involvement, influence and transparency, planners and residents need more understanding of the benefits of these tools. The study indicates that though planners found the collected data and the analysis valuable, they still lacked the skills and institutional motivation to use the data effectively. The results point out that when PPGIS tools can be integrated to the mainstream planning practices, the tools have the ability to evolve to a more comprehensive participatory planning support system.

Keywords:

• Public participation
• PPGIS
• PSS
• PPSS
• master plan
• Helsinki

Notes

1. Official information on the Helsinki 2050 city plan is available on http://www.yleiskaava.fi/en/.

2. The developed tools are available online in http://yleiskaava.maptionnaire.com/ and https://helsinki.asiatkartalle.fi/geoforms/2/feedback.

3. Altogether 4,681 respondents visited the survey, but 938 did not answer to any of the questions or make any mappings. It is likely that many of these respondents scanned the survey first through without answering. The application did take this possibility into account and provided a ‘Try without saving the answers’ option, but perhaps many respondents did not notice this option.