Mapping Residents' Views, Voices, and Visions: A Pilot Study on the Use of High-Tech Tools for Community Planning in Low-Income Neighborhoods

Author: Laura Lanza

Dissertation School: University of Pennsylvania

Abstract:

The purpose of this proposal is to develop a replicable, systematic, participatory planning method that can bring residents' voices, views, and visions for managing neighborhood change into the planning process. The first step is to develop media-literate, economically affordable, user-friendly means of incorporating digital multimedia data in planning to communicate ideas for creating more livable communities and neighborhoods. The goal is to design a method to collect and integrate both digitally recorded qualitative and quantitative data in a single spatial map, in such a way that it can easily be replicated and adapted in a range of planning context by municipal community planners, community-based planning efforts, and university-community partnerships.

The goal of this pilot study is to use multimedia technology to connect local knowledge to current revitalization strategies and neighborhood transformation programs. How can planners and educators learn from local communities, and assist them in developing the social capital within neighborhoods so "users" can more effectively shape their environment? Decisionmaking processes tend to favor numerical display of information, which screens out a range of environmental values and promotes others, in particular values that have to do with financial investment.

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