GIS is important, but gets no ink. It's one place where our federalist governmental structure and generally weak government do us no favors. Many governments at all levels, as well as many private enterprises, are doing GIS. The result is much duplication of effort, anathema to a lazy bureaucrat, and waste of taxpayer money, anathema to a skinflint conservative. It wouldn't be so bad if GIS were a once and done effort. The worst part of the problem is that geographical data change. Whether its changes in administrative boundaries, changes in land (rivers change courses, earthquakes change elevations and locations), changes in ownership, even changes in biology. If each change has got to be updated to multiple GIS's, some won't get changed, so their data won't be as accurate as it's supposed to be, and others will get changed inconsistently.
Stay tuned for more harangues.
See this GAO report on the problems in the Bush administrations. See here for the government portal.
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