COMMON GROUND FOR INTEGRATING PLANNING-THEORY AND GIS TOPICS

The basic premise of this article is that planning theory and geograph ic information systems (GIS) course topics should be integrated in the planning curriculum. The increased use of GIS technology for informin g planning and public policy decision making is discussed in the first section, followed by a summary of related technical and theoretical d isparities. The concept of links is then introduced and used in the fi nal section to demonstrate the concerts in which common themes can be identified for integrating planning norms (ethics, values, communicati ve rationality, planning process, and concert) and GIS methods (data c reation, analysis, and presentation).