GIS & Public Engagement
How One MPO Used Story Maps to Pass a Referendum
Interactive spatial storytelling that turned a complex transportation plan into something voters could see, understand, and support at the ballot.
Parker & Vale helps planning organizations, municipalities, and community nonprofits communicate complex infrastructure work to the people it affects. We combine regional planning expertise, GIS visualization, documentary storytelling, and modern digital systems to close the gap between what gets built and what communities actually understand.
The communication gap in public planning is real and costly. Technical work that can't be explained to the public loses support, stalls funding, and fails to deliver its intended benefit.
GIS data, planning documents, and technical work need a human layer. Maps, films, dashboards, and clear writing turn complex infrastructure into something people can see, trust, and support.
Domain expertise without storytelling is invisible. Storytelling without expertise is noise. Parker & Vale combines both — which is rare, and which is the point.
From planning advisory and federal compliance through GIS visualization and into public-facing media — every service closes the gap between what gets built and what communities understand.
Planning advisory, federal compliance support, public involvement strategy, and grant narrative development — grounded in a decade of firsthand experience inside MPOs and regional agencies.
Interactive GIS, story maps, live dashboards, and spatial data visualization — built to make complex infrastructure data legible to elected officials, stakeholders, and the public.
Documentary shorts, photography, project films, designed planning documents, and public meeting media — the human layer that turns technical work into something communities can see and trust.
Examples of infrastructure communication, GIS visualization, and documentary storytelling in service of public understanding.
Interactive spatial storytelling that turned a complex transportation plan into something voters could see, understand, and support at the ballot.
Redesigning a federally required planning document so that elected officials, stakeholders, and the public could navigate and understand it.
A live, publicly accessible dashboard replacing static annual reports — giving communities ongoing visibility into infrastructure conditions and investment.
GIS firms don't make films. Communications agencies don't know what a TIP amendment is. Parker & Vale holds both — which means the map, the film, the planning document, and the public meeting are all built from the same understanding of what a project actually is.
A decade inside MPOs and regional planning agencies means we know federal compliance, grant cycles, public involvement requirements, and what elected officials need to see before they vote yes.
"The gap between what gets built and what communities understand isn't a data problem. It's a communication problem. That's exactly what we exist to close."
If you're a planning organization, municipality, or public agency with an infrastructure project that needs to be understood — not just completed — we'd like to talk.