Planning land use as if nature and community mattered

By Judy Arginteanu

Maps show points in space--highway exits or your house. For David Pitt, professor of landscape architecture, they do all that and more--from showing the geology to showing people's thoughts and feelings.

Pitt, who focuses on integrating perceptions of landscape into design, planning, and management, uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS), along with two other digital tools, to telescope in and out of landscapes and help decision makers figure out optimal solutions for the future of such areas as the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.

In this project, Pitt and a group of graduate students generated maps that pulled out scientific data such as slope and geology along the riverbanks. But he also made maps that show how people feel about what they see. Using digital simulation, Pitt digitally produced photos of the different types of possible landscapes, from the pristine to the fully developed. Then he gathered reactions from the 300 or so people who live, work, and recreate in the valley.

Before the advent of such digital simulation, "the capacity to simulate virtual images of change is something we used to dream about," Pitt said. "We did drawings, but photos have the ring of virtual reality."

With GIS, Pitt can generate a model of scientific value, with the numbers to back it up. And using psychometric technology, he can offer hard numbers for the soft data of perceptions. Then he can use GIS to integrate the myriad pieces, hard and soft.

Equally important for Pitt is passing along this kind of decision support system to the new generation of landscape architects and urban planners. He likes to subtitle the course he teaches with the Humphrey Institute's Richard Bolan and Carissa Schively Slotterback as "land-use planning as if nature and community values really mattered."

The implications of the digital revolution are tremendous, Pitt said. Instead of a few stakeholders charging full speed ahead, often discovering the unintended consequences only after it's too late, everyone now can weigh in on possibilities played out to their logical conclusion. Instead of people feeling opposed to each other, "it opens up the decision-making process, makes it more transparent, and increases the potential for it to be collaborative and participatory," Pitt said.