## 5 Examples of Crowdsourcing Applications in Spatial Planning
The site contains textual information relating to the area's regeneration, mappable information (maps and panoramas), so that the residents can \"see\" the future view of their area, a bulletin board that enables citizens to post comments and also a 3D view of the area's possible future. That last ability will further be extended by allowing citizens to upload their own designs and schemes [13]. In cases where crowdsourcing is combined with GIS, there are several interfaces that support the input of points, lines, polygons, as well as users' comments. Moreover, PPGIS, in combination with multi-media technologies, enables users to share spatial information by using videos (audio-visual information) and \"changes over time\" (play-back) or proposals for the future of a specific area. Internet GIS may improve the democratic foundations of the participatory process, while PPGIS consists of an effective means for increasing community participation in the evaluation process [20]. A simple PPGIS application has been developed in the case of Slaithwaite (U.K.), based on the \"Planning for Real\" (PFR) participatory model. The original idea for such a model was developed and patented by the Neighborhood Initiatives Foundation (NIF) as a means of involving people more closely in local environmental planning problems and decision making [21]. In the case of Slaithwaite in West Yorkshire, the PFR model was adopted so that the \"Virtual Slaithwaite\", an effective web-based mapping application implementing the online model of the village (online PPGIS facility), was created under the \"Slaithwaite PFR\" or \"Shaping Slaithwaite\" exercise. The exercise focused on the construction of a three-dimensional model of a 2 km-square area of Slaithwaite and the surrounding valley, which supported the discussion on several planning issues (e.g., plans to re-open the canal through the center of the village, access to industrial sites, _etc._) [21]. Residents were invited to express their opinion, thus giving feedback, so that the whole exercise was supported by the participation of the crowd. More specifically, the application allows the local community to interact with a digital map (mappable information), which gives relatively instant access to the queries they pose [21]. Users can access any point or areas of the village by clicking on it, ask questions for further details concerning the spatial entities depicted on the map layer (e.g., buildings) and post comments concerning the future development of specific locations [21]. The user input is stored and used for future analysis during the planning process. Thus, a community database is created representing a range of views about planning issues in the village. The tools adopted for the construction of such an application include: a Java map application, called GeoTools, which allows the user to perform a simple spatial query and attribute input operations, thus enabling the interaction between the user and the map. The user responses were handled using Perl server-side scripts and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) forms. Finally, the map applet used displays a set of ESRI Arcview shape files allowing pan and zoom operations and the retrieval of attribute information from the associated.dbf file [21]. Another PPGIS application has been developed in Australia by \"Parks Victoria\" (the national park management agency for Victoria) and the Parks Victoria Alpine Planning team for national park planning. The study region is the Greater Alpine National Parks, which contain five smaller national parks, wildlife regions and three regions of historical interest [15]. The expected input to this specific system involves citizens' points of view (represented as markers on a map), derived from their personal experience about the park, as well as information relating to the environmental effects in the park and the facilities and services offered in the different zones of the park.