Marketing Rural Communities with GIS-Enhanced Web Sites

Author: Eric Fladager
Organization: Umpqua Regional Council of Governments

1036 SE Douglas Avenue
Roseburg, OR 97470
USA

Phone: (541) 440-4231
Fax: (541) 440-6252
ejfladag@ur-cog.cog.or.us

This presentation describes the Rural Information Technology Demonstration Project, which markets rural industrial sites, developable residential land, and tourism/recreation facilities on the Web. The project's GIS-enhanced Web pages provide detailed site assessments for 107 industrial sites and 205 developable residential properties located throughout Douglas County, Oregon. Industrial and residential sites are depicted with parcel orientation maps, development constraints and zoning maps, infrastructure maps, and orthophoto-based site maps. Popup windows contain descriptive text for each parcel. The project's tourism/recreation Web pages contain virtual tours of Douglas County, featuring GPS-linked photos and hot links to individual attractions.