United Kingdom view by Alessandro Augiri method
The contradiction of drawing spatially undefined policies The working mandate of Theme 3 initially presented a task that embedded a clear tension between the type of representation to be implemented, defined as "maps and cartographic illustrations" and the nature of the object of representation itself, defined as "political aims and strategies for spatial development". The revision of the mandate, and its formulation as "The exploration of methods and alternative graphic design to illustrate European spatial policy aims" set an overall strategy that goes beyond the mere 'mapping' exercise and opens up possibilities for experimentation and creative interpretation of the task at stake. On the one hand this new definition of the working mandate allows more degrees of freedom in envisaging methods to produce representations of the ESDP policies. But it has to be acknowledged that the contradiction and tension between the spatial needs of any visualisation exercise and the lack of spatial definition of policies are still very strong.
Reading the ESDP document produced in Postdam, it is immediately evident how the policies expressed there offer willingly no reference whatsoever to actual places and localised actions, expressing a general set of policies and aims at the European level. Therefore, the action of 'drawing' these strategies has to face a fundamental difficulty. Indeed, as drawing something means putting different graphic elements - whatever they are - in a spatial relationship among themselves on a sheet of paper or a computer screen, drawing policies that have no spatial reference is potentially a non-solvable problem. Needless to say that any attempt to produce images that partially address the problem will always imply the introduction of a high level of abstraction and subjectivity in the representation of them. The placement of these graphic elements will have to be 'casual' to a certain degree at least.
2. COMPARING METHODS
Different ways to approach the problem The first set of experiments that were shown in the early Study Programme meetings had been of three different natures, all of which were showing their assets and limits in fulfilling this difficult task, in relation to the tensions described above. The following lines will summarise these different ways of trying and visualise policies, with their 'pros' and 'cons' respect to the fulfilment of the mandate.
ICON-MAKING (e.g. the icons in the Postdam document) Pros High level of abstraction - good for policies Very effective in communicating a simple general concept
Cons Oversimplifying - It forced a radical selection of aims and features in the representation. The icons did not always do justice to the complex and articulated textual description of the policies. When attempts were made at making them more complex, they lost their strength and effectiveness and could become messy. Lack of context - Nearly any spatial reference was absent and it was hard to figure out what Europe could be through looking at the icons. They could be used for any other location in the World. Lack of time dimension - Policies are implemented in an existing situation, and in relation to it. It has been noted in our UK NFP management meeting that being able to represent current trends as well would help making sense of the representation of policies.
MAP-MAKING - Representing current trends related to the ESDP policies, through the production of maps, often by using GIS. Some exercises showed an attempt to highlight relevant features and make them somehow more abstract through the use of symbols, line thickness, surfaces, etc. Pros and cons of this approach tend to be the inverse of the previous one.
Pros Readable context - Europe was recognisable, and it was possible to make sense of the general context and set of regions where policies will be implemented. More complex - The spatial dimension could help making sense of more complex sets of variables and features. Readable trends - Current trends and indicators (when needed) could be represented on the map and constituted a basis for the exposition of policies that stem from them. The time variable could be implemented, though in a limited way.
Cons Lower level of abstraction - Whatever was not well defined and spatially referenced (e.g. policies) could be extremely hard to include. The risk was that specific locations can be mistakenly 'recognised' as policy objects even if they were not. This was particularly true if there was an attempt to 'make the policy up' in the geographical context.
GRAPHICAL LANGUAGE-MAKING - Based on the creation of a symbolic language. The attempt was to construct a set of symbols and signs to be used to represent policy features and actions on a map. Those who have chosen this approach had not actually produced any representation, but just the elements and the overall concepts underpinning these graphical bits, or a series of general indications about the method they wanted to follow. A possible problem was that once they found themselves facing the actual task of producing an image out of these elements, the tension between geography and spatially unreferenced policies would emerge strongly. Creating a language can be useful, but being able to use it implies to have some kind of statement to express. Placing symbols on a map implies having a spatial statement to make, and ESDP policies usually do not provide such a statement. The 'language-making' exercise was not irrelevant, of course. It could provide a common platform of symbols to be used, but it did not solve in any way the tension between policy abstraction and visual organisation of graphical elements.
3. DEFINING TENSIONS AND CHALLENGES
If we synthesise the issues identified as advantages and disadvantages of these early approaches, we can define the problem of representation of abstract policies better. Three main tensions can be identified, that characterise the task of theme 3. These are represented in the diagram below.
We have seen that main difficulty of making policy maps seems to be the ability of 'grounding' abstract policies. The possibility of providing a summary vision of the current trends that interact with and motivate policies can also be seen as an interesting feature to consider to reinforce the illustration of the strategies, as they are constructed in reaction to an existing situation. At the light of what we have seen so far, it can be argued that there is no easy solution to the problem of making effective and sensible 'policy maps'.
As we have already noted, it is impossible to address and solve all these tension in a definite way. Therefore three possible 'partial' answers can be envisaged, and the UK National Focal Point made a choice for one of these three approaches, as we will see in the next section.
4. TOWARDS A COMBINED APPROACH TO THE TASK OF MAKING POLICY MAPS
From the above definition of the main tensions to be addressed for representing policies in a spatial context, three radically different attitudes can be applied to the 'solution' of the problem. Two of them imply a quite sharp selection of the features to visualise, whilst the third one tries to mediate between the two by implementing two different layers (and levels) of representation within the same image.
A. TRENDS-BASED. Seeing the trends, deducting the policies One possible choice can be identified as the 'deductive' approach. This method tends to use a more traditional cartographic mode of operating, however innovative it can be in terms of use of graphic elements. Basically, acknowledging that policies as they are formulated cannot be put in a drawing, this method tends to represent a set of current trends and indicators, and let deduction do the rest.
We should still be aware that this is not a scientific or quasi-scientific process, that it involves a certain degree of personal choice from the illustrator, and therefore that it cannot be easily framed in a replicable 'protocol' that could be precisely applied to an infinite number of cases. At least, this is not possible as far as the details of the final illustration are concerned. To represent policies on maps, we find ourselves facing two very different levels of abstraction: Trends Policies …and different features that relate to these: place - however vague and blurred the representation of locations has to be resource - transports, networks, population, education and training, deprivation, etc. action - what the policy is going to do (time) - although animations are possibly the best way to represent changes over time, the contrast between existing trends and policy aims can provide a certain dynamism
If we put these elements in a table, we can construct a framework that helps us envisaging a way to identify what has to be represented to make sense of the policy in question. We can organise these conceptual elements this way:
PLACE RESOURCE ACTION TIME TREND (The time variable can be represented by contrast of trend and policy) POLICY
Now, if we take a policy description from the Postdam document and analyse its text, it should be possible to extrapolate a limited series of keywords that still explain the policy, and that can be framed in the different cells of the table above. It will then be the case of employing two radically different levels of graphical abstraction (and therefore symbols, signs and placement of these) to represent those elements that belong to the 'trend' category and those that belong to the 'policy'.
For instance, if we take the description of 'urban-rural partnership', we can construct the following grid:
PLACE RESOURCE ACTION TIME TREND (Some competitive rural regions) Other rural regions have economic problems due to peripheral location (problems due to) Low pop density Inaccessibility Climate Poor infrastructure Outdated agriculture (The time variable is represented by contrast of trend and policy)
POLICY (Small and medium towns as new hubs for rural regions) City + countryside as spatial entity Biodiversity Multi-functionality of agriculture Education and training Renewable energy Re-discovery Provision Promotion
This exercise will produce a framework of what has to be represented and 'how', in terms of abstraction level. For instance, locations relative to existing trends could be relatively identifiable, whilst generic locations named in policies (or classes of them such as 'small cities' or 'peripheral regions') would end up being represented with less precise graphic elements such as hatched areas or 'bubbles' including symbols that are not placed somewhere precise. In particular, to represent policy-related places, the use of any kind of borders should probably be avoided, thus reinforcing the blurred aspect of these graphic elements.
In summary, the exercise would result in the production of a map with contrasting elements of 'reality' and 'policy', represented in a very different way but interacting in the overall picture.
5. THE EXAMPLES PRODUCED
To test these assumptions two examples have been produced, illustrating the "Globally important integration zones" and the "Urban-rural partnership" policy issues. Both the examples involved the production of a GIS-generated thematic map and the superimposition of blurred semi-transparent 'bubbles' that make use of the excellent icons already prepared by the German NFP. The choice of using those icons instead of producing some new ones is to avoid redundant efforts. In other words it does not make much sense to duplicate work that has already been done, in a very good way indeed. In practice, the abstraction of the Postdam icons is placed over areas of a thematic map of Europe representing an existing trend, and where necessary other symbols have been added to complement the illustrative power of the icons. This makes sure that the action of the policies, expressed by the symbols in the icons, remains vague - as no specific geographical points are specified or identified - whilst at the same time the policies are put in context and the current trend is visualised in the map.