PPGIS and Public meetings : an evaluation of public participation methods for urban planning
Abstract: The primary purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate two public participation methods. The two methods are public meetings and Public participatory GIS (PPGIS). Public meetings are an established public participation method for urban planning in Sweden. The thesis aims to test the hypothesis if PPGIS is more effective as a public participation method. The thesis first evaluated the two methods with the help of a framework for evaluating participation methods. The framework defined what effective participation methods were. An effective public participation method was assumed to gather high volumes of data for planners to use and be representative of the respondents. Other key factors for efficiency were cost-effectiveness, independence of respondents and influence of comments on decisions-making. A GIS-analysis to demonstrate the possibilities of a PPGIS was also conducted. Data for this study were gathered with the help of City of Helsingborg. The results suggest that the hypothesis could not be rejected. It was concluded that PPGIS is a more effective participation method, however a combination of both methods would further benefit the public participation.
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