Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1.
I
NTRODUCTION
This chapter presents how GIS can be used to help build community
capital towards sustainability. Community capital is an existing community
asset or resource that can be leveraged to improve quality of life in the
community and bring about desired social change (Kretzmann & McKnight,
1993; Roseland & Connelly, 2005). Community-based organizations (CBOs)
work to build and enhance various forms of community capital, including
environmental capital, physical capital, human capital, political capital,
financial capital, social capital, and cultural capital (Green & Haines, 2012).
The community can take a crucial role in sustainable development (United
Nations [UN], 1992, Section III), and data and tools relevant to sustainable
community development have exploded due to advances in information and
communications technology (ICT). Given this, it is timely and important to
consider how GIS can assist community-based efforts to progress toward
sustainability.
GIS can aid the process of building community capital because spatial
elements are present in various stages of community development from public
participation and community organizing to community visioning. CBOs use
geographic information (GI) (such as maps, geospatial data, and tools) to (a)
support the activities of their staff members (administrative use of GI); (b)
investigate conditions and plan for the provision of services (strategic use of
GI); (c) plan specific action around a particular issue (tactical use of GI); and
(d) persuade and organize more people to get involved in community issues
and activities either through recruitment or grant-seeking (organizing) (Craig
& Elwood, 1998). As sustainability emphasizes the balance of environmental,
economic, and social goals, there is a need to better understand how different
forms of capital interact with each other and how building specific community
capital contributes to overall community sustainability.
To assess whether a community is on a sustainable path, it is necessary to
monitor the increase or decrease of total stocks of capital over time as well as
the dynamics of human-environmental interaction unique to the community
(Daly, 1973). One can analyze how different forms of capital—natural capital,
built capital, human capital, and social capital—are related or in balance to
assess sustainability using the capital framework in an information system
(Meadows, 1998). This framework has advantages because it attempts to
integrate different forms of capital, and enables an analysis of sustainability
condition (strong and weak sustainability) informed by economic theories of
sustainability (Solow, 1986; Pearce & Atkinson, 1993). The capital framework
