I was very pleased and honored to participate in the Esri-ICMA White Boarding Exercise that occurred at the Esri Headquarters on April 25, 2013.  The session was enlightening and thought-provoking and it left me inspired to become more of a force to further integrate GIS technologies into my organization.  While I walked away from the session with the desire to immediately work to implement several excellent applications made available by Esri, I recognize that there are many potential barriers impeding my path.  In this paper, I will assess the many barriers that exist that hinder a fully integrated GIS environment in Orange and likely most cities across the United States.  

As a means of significantly enhancing its GIS resources, the City of Orange, a full-service California city of 140,000 residents, recently embarked on an internal assessment of the current GIS functionality and governance. As part of that assessment, City and IT staff met with Esri representatives at their campus in Redlands to discuss how Esri can help the City further its GIS capabilities.  As a follow-up to that session, I participated in the Esri-ICMA White Boarding Exercise.  Based on these data gathering efforts, I have concluded that the following barriers exist hindering the enhancement and integration of GIS functionality.

• City Departments operate in silos when seeking technology advances: The reality is that many city departments function in silos.  Therefore, the departments do not seek nor demand GIS integrations for the business systems they desire.  The enterprise “group think” is not present to view the business system from an enterprise perspective.  The departments focus heavily on their department business needs and take the path of least resistance to obtain business systems that satisfy department goals with little regard for a City-wide enterprise perspective.  Further, when acquiring or updating business systems, departments generally seek more affordable or less complex systems. As a result, these systems lack core GIS competencies.
• GIS is not viewed as an enterprise-wide solution: Ideally, GIS is managed as an enterprise-wide solution through a centralized IT support structure.  However, in many cases, GIS is managed by a city department. In Orange, GIS is one of the few functions in the City’s IT environment that is not managed by the IT department.  Like many cities, the initial development of GIS platforms in Orange was performed by public works staff mapping streets and other municipal infrastructure.  Over time, this secondary function in the City’s Public Works Department grew to an operation that is supported by two full-time staff members in our Public Works Department.  While the Public Works Department maintains an extensive array of GIS layers, the City’s GIS functionality has simply evolved over time with minimal planning and there has been limited coordination among City departments.
• City organizations have multiple “islands of data” which prevent integration: As city departments have implemented numerous business systems with little regard for a city-wide enterprise perspective, the data that resides in these systems are independent. Further, these islands of data have differing database formats.  As a result, after-the-fact integration is extremely difficult and/or cost prohibitive.
• Departments that are not proficient with GIS do not insist on GIS capabilities for their business solutions: Departments that lack the exposure or innovative view of GIS capabilities do not insist on GIS integration.
• City Leaders adverse to risk do not take chances on GIS: Government leaders tend to avoid risk for fear of making a mistake that will cost their organization money or damage their reputation. Many government leaders view GIS as a risky investment or an investment that is slow to show results.  Therefore, the public sector generally lags behind the private sector in the utilization of GIS resources. 
• Software system vendors lack sufficient incentive to build GIS enterprise integrations: Software system vendors for government business solutions such as permitting, maintenance management, and document management tend to develop systems that are not dependent on GIS. Therefore, these vendors develop the needed addressing or parcel management capabilities within their systems without a dependency on GIS.  Further, business system vendors often make conservative development choices by shying away from developing GIS solutions within their products.  Ideally, a vendor that focuses on permitting solutions should view their solution as a spoke with GIS as the hub.  Therefore, the permitting system and a work management system can “communicate” to each other through the GIS database.
• GIS database formats and GIS standards vary for many agencies: Esri commands a high percentage of the GIS market share but not all agencies are standardized on Esri for GIS.  Therefore, vendors have to consider the GIS integration development value in the context of the multiple GIS vendor landscape.
• Rapid changes in technology hinder GIS integration: Technology is changing so rapidly that attempting to make major development strides for business systems is difficult.  Deciding when and what to invest in is a challenge enough; compound these business decisions with issues related to compatibility, operability and flexibility.   Furthermore, the Bring Your Own Device (“BYOD”) phenomenon has also been a very rapid technology change requiring a re-evaluation of where to apply development resources for mobile technology.  In Orange, we are just scratching the surface in optimizing our business systems for mobile technology.

While there are many barriers facing cities to fully integrate GIS into the core technologies, the future is bright for GIS.  The growth of mobile GIS applications; the increased affordability of GIS technologies; and the simplification of GIS implementation will lead to a significant expansion of GIS resources at the local government level over the next several years.  Efforts like the Esri-ICMA #LocalGov Technology Alliance and White Boarding Exercise, which will help to break down some of the above noted barriers, will further lead to that expansion.