A beginners manual on application of GIS in planning

The purpose of this manual is to develop a real-time experience guide for beginners who are interested in using a Geographical Information System (GIS) as a tool of analysis in Planning. In the beginning; Geographers, cartographers and many companies and agencies made extensive use of GIS. Later, it was also further developed by planning profession even though it was not used extensively by Planning Professionals. The primary reason is that lack of expertise in GIS for use in the planning profession. It was not until recently that planning schools have begun teaching GIS. So this was one of the primary reasons that this project was developed for "The Client" Community Outreach Partnership Center at Ball State University (An organization for the Community development at Muncie, Indiana) during summer-2004 on application of GIS using ArcGIS Version 8.0/8.3. This further reinforced the decision of the project to develop a guide or a Manual on "Application of GIS in Planning" which is highly useful for the beginners in the Planning Profession.