Center for Community Mapping

Based in Princeton, this organization provides mapping technology services to nonprofits, individuals, and educational institutions. This gives a good example of how GIS technology can be used in creating different types of maps. Not a how-to guide, this site offers examples of products that may be useful in arts and civic engagement work. The Center for Community Mapping seeks to unify and strengthen communities by offering individuals, non-profit organizations, and educational institutions the tools to help manage their interests. Visualizing community-based knowledge and perceptions stimulates the exchange of information and equalizes opportunities for all members of the community to participate in processes that affect their neighborhoods and lives. The Center for Community Mapping empowers grass-roots stakeholders with mapping technology to foster participatory planning, community education, and cooperative organization. Collaborative mapping supports and facilitates an integrated approach to environmental conservation, open-space and historic preservation, neighborhood revitalization and urban planning, community asset inventories, and economic development, as well as expands awareness of local needs, issues and special places as determined by the community's own members. [Summary adapted from Center for Community Mapping website.]