Urban Design

For major urban development, redevelopment and beautification projects, GIS can be used powerfully to envision and to plan. Whether applied to suburbs or central cities, GIS can help urban planners to effectively allocate resources in places where they are most needed and most appropriate. GIS is especially effective in helping city planners to take advantage of natural features, while sustainably planning within the limits imposed by nature.

Zoning

Zoning maps have long been created using GIS technology. GIS allows planners to overlay various phenomena, including topography, parcels, hydrology and current land use in order to best choose zoning designations. Viewshed analysis and proximity analysis can be integrated with data on landscape and weather patterns in order to come up with zoning solutions that will minimize nuisances.

Regional Planning

GIS is essential for sound planning at the regional level. Counties, cross-boundary agencies and regional governments all can benefit greatly from using GIS to manage development, agriculture, open space, transportation and utilities. The multi-layer approach of GIS can help regional planners to look at overlapping phenomena--roads, soils, geology, topography, wetlands, hazard zones, ownership boundaries—and make queries across all those layers. This can greatly simplify decision making in spatially allocating land uses.