A Spreadsheet Approach to GIS

Planning academics are increasingly faced with the problems of how to introduce their students to GIS (geographic information systems). These problems revolve around student and faculty aptitude, time constraints, limitations of current GIS, keeping up with developments, and the high cost of systems and software. It is suggested in this paper that a spreadsheet-based approach may offer a way to skirt these issues, at least for an introduction to GIS, as well as for some planning practice. Although there may be relative constraints in terms of system capacity compared to dedicated GIS systems, many of the functions can be carried out using spreadsheets and, most importantly, integration with teaching and spatial analysis is straightforward. The purpose of the paper is to make readers aware of these possibilities and to illustrate a small number of applications. After a brief discussion of the need for such an approach, the procedures for setting up a spreadsheet mapping system as part of an integrated GIS that includes data preparation, model construction, and estimation and simulation are described. Three examples are provided.