This collection of use cases illustrates the variety of problems that GIS can help governments solve. The GIS Guide for Elected Officials is a resource for government officials who want to better understand how to use GIS to answer location-based questions related to service delivery, workflows, and citizen engagement. GIS can help answer questions such as:
- Are calls for service originating from the same neighborhood about the same problem? If so, why?
- How can work crews respond more efficiently to service calls?
- Does citizen satisfaction with city services vary across the community?
The opening section explains what GIS is and how it works for government. The next two sections describe, through examples from jurisdictions large and small, how GIS is used to support policy decisions and streamline government operations. The final section tells elected officials what they need to do to support the creation of their own GIS programs.
The use cases in The GIS Guide for Elected Officials address the many and varied challenges facing government, from assessing potential markets for start-up businesses to responding to disasters to identifying urban food deserts. Elected officials can learn how to build and maintain a strong GIS program while dealing with rapidly changing technology and shrinking government budgets.
The book’s editor, Cory Fleming, is a senior project manager with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), who currently directs ICMA’s 311/CRM Technical Assistance Services. She writes about the use of data for the improvement of local government service delivery and performance measurement. Esri Press, 2014, 212 pp., ISBN: 9781589482722
