GIS for urban planning

Urban planning is a multifaceted process that includes infrastructure, utility systems, communication networks, distribution chains, and more.

Managing so many variables can be challenging, but modern GIS technology provides a solution.

What is urban planning?

Urban planners, sometimes known as city planners, design cities and make plans for improvements and future growth.

These plans include much of what you see when navigating an urban environment: streets, parks, public spaces, and more.

According to National Geographic, urban planning dates back to the 19th century when diseases spread in unclean, overcrowded cities.

City planners concluded that putting people away from industrial centers, stench, and pollution would improve public health.

It was during this time that zoning laws came into effect: separating urban areas into residential, commercial, and industrial areas.

Some argue that although there may be health benefits, removing people from their jobs has increased dependence on cars: increasing traffic and air pollution.

As such, modern city planning must take into account things like bike lanes, walking, and traffic flow.

Whereas early city planners were generally concerned with rapid population growth and urban sprawl, modern urban planners face the opposite problem.

Most cities are not growing, and in fact many are facing population loss.

The 2010 US Census also indicated that population growth had slowed in 14 of the 15 largest urban centers.

Therefore, urban planners must also plan what to do with the vacant land created when people or businesses move away.

And urban planners do their best to plan for an unpredictable future.

Fortunately for today’s city planners, technology has advanced in a way that can help.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become an invaluable tool for urban planners, providing support for database creation, spatial analysis, modeling and visualization.

The benefits of GIS in urban planning

GIS in urban planning has become increasingly useful over time.

Initially, the high costs of installation and operation hindered the adoption of GIS in urban planning.

However, as GIS hardware has become less expensive and GIS software has become more user-friendly – and reliability has increased.

There are also many benefits to using GIS in urban planning, but we will present below the five most important benefits.

1. Improved mapping

With a single repository of current and historical maps and data, a GIS can improve map currency (whether the map is updated or not), increase the effectiveness of thematic mapping, and reduce expenditures for data storage.

2. Increased access to information

A desktop GIS makes it easy to store, manage, and access data from a variety of sources.

Cloud GIS offers the same feature, with access enabled from any device.

3. Improve communication

Through a unified system of data storage and management, insiders can access the information they need immediately,

Instead of sifting through documents, hard drives, or trying to track down data across partitions.

4. Increasing the quality and efficiency of public services

GIS can be used, opening the flow of information between government institutions and the public.

Government officials can share information quickly, while members of the public have self-accessed to the information they need.

5. Increase support for decision-making

With quick access to a broader range of critical geographic information, planners can create informed strategies more effectively.

What’s more, they can explore a wide range of “what if” scenarios – ideally leading to stronger and more effective long-term strategies.

How does GIS achieve these benefits?

GIS tools for urban planning

GIS platforms have a variety of capabilities that can be applied to urban planning.

Database management, visualization, spatial analysis, and spatial modeling are among the most widely used.

Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

Database management

Database management is the process of creating, importing, maintaining and using all the data that travels in and out of a GIS platform.

For urban planning, this includes storage of environmental data, social and economic data, land use maps and plans, and planning applications.

As you can imagine, cities generate huge amounts of data in various formats.

And GIS provides a single database where all that data can be easily stored and organized.

Once data is added to the database, urban planners can use spatial queries to quickly access information.

Visualization

In the context of urban planning, visualization often refers to maps.

Desktop GIS provides powerful map visualization tools, enabling planners to create maps (sometimes even in 3D).

Environmental, social and economic data can be used to help create these maps, or added post facto as a secondary data source.

While digital maps make it easier for urban planners to make decisions and explore solutions.

For example, locating the ideal location for a new park or public space.

Spatial analysis and modeling

GIS in urban planning enables spatial analysis and modeling, which can contribute to a variety of important urban planning tasks.

These tasks include site selection, land suitability analysis, land use and transport modelling, identification of areas for planning work, and impact assessments.

GIS functions such as interpolation, caching, map overlay, and connectivity measurement help urban planners achieve these tasks.

Field data collection

For many years, people have associated GIS with bulky programs installed locally on desktop computers or laptops in the back office. This is changing.

With the advent of Mobile GIS, urban planners can conduct research in the field, view dynamic maps on their phones,

capture key information, and import field data back into a desktop GIS.

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