A need exists within urban planning for techniques to promote sustainable policies and developments-for this to become possible, we need to enhance and facilitate stakeholder understanding and involvement in decision making and in monitoring the impacts of management policies. GIS (Geographical Information Systems) are commonly used as planning and analysis tools in developing countries, while parallel work has been investigating sustainable development and the future of cities. GIS-P (GIS-Participation) combines GIS and other methodologies of social and environmental assessment in a new set of techniques that meet the aims of sustainability. The methodology includes developing a spatial database of environmental and social information to assist in the formulation of available options and jointly holding citizen inquiry groups with stakeholders from within the community and statutory and non-statutory organizations to provide input in the formulation of options.
