Space and place in geographic decision making

Recent innovations in computer science seem in some ways to have undercut traditional objections to the use of computers in decision making. For example, if some argued that traditional programming promoted a mindset within which decision making itself was a linguistic and rigidly rule-guided process, new systems of object-oriented programming seem to offer a much richer image of thinking. Yet, in the case of geographic information systems (GISs), historical precedent, expressed in legal, cultural and institutional structures, renders it difficult to move from this rule-bound model. These matters are made more difficult by the way in which language and thinking are tightly linked to a very specific conception of space. Indeed, in GISs, the conceptions of space, reason and language can best be seen as fitting together in a self-supporting structure. In the end, this undercuts the possibility of understanding certain important features of human decision-making; at the same time, it prevents those involved in the use of GISs from benefiting from those recent developments that have “loosened” the conceptualization of decision making in information systems more generally