It would be great to have more GIS available for community use. Still – as a person who grew up with maps, and then went to planning school, how could I NOT like GIS?
Based on recent experience, though, I think a grain of salt is in order. I put together a presentation with Friends of the Oval to talk about the need for pedestrian improvements around one of the entrances. As a typical planner, I put a map up front to situate the location. “I can’t picture it.” “I need a picture!” The other members of the group quickly convinced me that I needed something more concrete than a map, so we opened with a photo.
Later the same month, I was at a meeting of CB7’s Traffic and Transportation Committee. I wanted to talk about the signal timing at an intersection, and so the District Manager pulled up Google Maps. But instead of using the map, they went straight to the Street View!
So… maps are good. But when dealing with disadvantaged communities, planners should be careful to recognize that something that seems so natural for them can be more abstract and alienating for their audience.
Street View is definitely an underestimated and underutilized planning tool. One way I tried to overcome the obstacle of abstraction once was to add clickable video panoramas of intersections on a map for the Broadway Triangle. This is also why architects’ renderings can be so useful, too.
You’re right that architect’s renderings can be very powerful. I believe they help to explain why architects are so frequently able to dominate discussions about planning issues, despite the lack of any real substance.
Well, now, I guess we can’t too hastily say that architects’ renderings “lack…any real substance”. If there is content and detail conveyed through photos (and Street View) that a map is unable to (as a function of its abstraction?), then it may be that architects’ renderings are also able to convey that additional content. Of course, a rendering is also often just an abstraction…
Renderings can have a great deal of substance. Unfortunately, they often provide a “sexy” and distracting image that attempts to conceal a poor plan.
Planners often focus too much on how something will look, without taking the question “What will it look like” seriously enough. Meanwhile, far too many architects are ready to fill the void with a few pretty pictures, without any serious thought about how the proposal will really work in the whole.
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Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.
It would be great to have more GIS available for community use. Still – as a person who grew up with maps, and then went to planning school, how could I NOT like GIS?
Based on recent experience, though, I think a grain of salt is in order. I put together a presentation with Friends of the Oval to talk about the need for pedestrian improvements around one of the entrances. As a typical planner, I put a map up front to situate the location. “I can’t picture it.” “I need a picture!” The other members of the group quickly convinced me that I needed something more concrete than a map, so we opened with a photo.
Later the same month, I was at a meeting of CB7’s Traffic and Transportation Committee. I wanted to talk about the signal timing at an intersection, and so the District Manager pulled up Google Maps. But instead of using the map, they went straight to the Street View!
So… maps are good. But when dealing with disadvantaged communities, planners should be careful to recognize that something that seems so natural for them can be more abstract and alienating for their audience.
Street View is definitely an underestimated and underutilized planning tool. One way I tried to overcome the obstacle of abstraction once was to add clickable video panoramas of intersections on a map for the Broadway Triangle. This is also why architects’ renderings can be so useful, too.
You’re right that architect’s renderings can be very powerful. I believe they help to explain why architects are so frequently able to dominate discussions about planning issues, despite the lack of any real substance.
Well, now, I guess we can’t too hastily say that architects’ renderings “lack…any real substance”. If there is content and detail conveyed through photos (and Street View) that a map is unable to (as a function of its abstraction?), then it may be that architects’ renderings are also able to convey that additional content. Of course, a rendering is also often just an abstraction…
Renderings can have a great deal of substance. Unfortunately, they often provide a “sexy” and distracting image that attempts to conceal a poor plan.
Planners often focus too much on how something will look, without taking the question “What will it look like” seriously enough. Meanwhile, far too many architects are ready to fill the void with a few pretty pictures, without any serious thought about how the proposal will really work in the whole.