Sacramento Area Council of Governments
Inter-Regional Partnership
GIS
ISACOG's modeling tools included Geographic Information System (GIS)
technology, current travel forecasting tools (the SACMET model and the Yuba-Sutter
area model), and "PLACE3S," a Web-based planning program that is the
centerpiece of the community, county and regional planning public workshops.
The PLACE3S software immediately shows the effects of expanded or limited development, through traffic projections, housing densities and other factors, and gives the user an appreciation for the consequences of sprawling growth. The software made it possible to do real-time countywide and region-wide modeling in public meetings, and is more accurate and more usable by anyone with a computer and a browser, making it easy to manipulate during the community workshops.
During the community workshops, PLACE3S allowed citizens to apply these new
skills to the familiar streets and lots of their own communities and counties.
Because the PLACE3S computer-assisted planning tool can scale up from small
parcels to the six-county region, participants see their local input contributing
to the regional growth scenarios. When citizens clearly see their own neighborhood's
roots in the larger regional plan, they gain greater understanding of the benefits
of well-informed regional cooperation and develop durable civic engagement.