The Legal Empowerment of the Poor - The Role of Place Names and Address Systems



  1. Introduction; the basic idea
  2. The HLCLEP Overview Paper; developing from present practice
  3. The notion of place names; the cultural dimension
  4. Geographic information systems for administrative purposes. Motivation of a sequenced development.
  5. Technology available for a phased implementation
  6. Discussion
  7. Conclusion
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1. Introduction

The High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor seeks to explore how nations can reduce poverty through reforms that expand access to legal protection and economic opportunities for all. It calls attention to the informal occupation of land and to the adverse effects of lack of property titles and other official recognition. While formalisation is needed, the Commission in its Overview Paper of September 2005 asserts that reforms will only be effective if they are based on empirical evidence of practices in the informal economy, and are developed with a clear understanding of local environments and ownership systems, and, perhaps most importantly, with the active participation of those whom policy initiatives are meant to assist. Among others, the paper invites reflections on the most effective sequencing of reforms.
www.zuerich-witikon.ch//w_witikon/fotogalerie/strassen/strassenbilder/Zweiacker-Str.jpgThe purpose of the present note is to outline a model of geospatial recordings, a set of Geographic Information Systems, which can be implemented in a phased way. Each of the phases thus should provide a reasonable return on the formalisation efforts made. The issues addressed are technical in nature, but care is taken to identify the social and cultural aspects of the focus: The local and national practices regarding place names, including the use of place names for postal services, the administration of street names and numbers and posting of street name plates, as well as the rendering of place names on topographic maps and in information systems.

The basic idea
The naming of places, streets, wells and other localized features is basically a matter of shared intentionality within the local community. Not seldom however, a more distant power may impose its preferences upon the community. Formalisation of an informal naming activity implies that the place names carried in the minds of the members of the group become manifest by being marked on location, in terms of visible signs on material objects. Of cause, no claim is made that the signposts are designed in a 'Western' style, cf. the image left. Important is that the signs are stable in time and space and readable for the intended audience. The intended audience is basically outsiders of the local community. Formalisation in terms of naming by means of street signposts, etc. has to follow a consideration of the trade-off, whether the risk of supporting the way finding of foreigners is outweighed against the benefit of, for example, provision of utility and/or emergency services. The cost of establishing sign posts is not high, as local material and expertise in most cases will suffice. Moreover, the effect of territoriality (in its human geography sense, see section 3) may provide for a substantial part of the motivation for generating and allocating the needed resources. This seems to be the case especially when the local community is prepared and entitled to take over certain responsibilities for the management of the area concerned.

The High Level Commission is concerned with various property rights and their registering. The present focus on the naming issue relates to the property rights issue in the way that a naming practise is considered a precondition for the perception of property rights. Naming implies that the group distinguish between themselves and their environment, rather than conceive themselves part of the natural and spiritual environment. Next, naming in addition to being a means of discernment and identification mostly implies some sort of control or responsibility. For example, parents (are entitled to) name their children and they control and care for them. Such control and care is inherent in the notion of ownership as well, and therefore we may say that a naming practice is a necessary precondition for exercising ownership. Finally, and from a more technical point of view, an address system is comparatively simple and cheap to set up, and may in due time provide a base for more sophisticated property systems. In fact, the research libraries' decimal classification system under the main heading: Language Science mention in section 801.311 the following: Place names, parcel identifiers, street names, and names of nation (Tekniska Litteraturselskabet, 1977). Parcel identifiers may be thus considered a specialization of place names.

2. The HLCLEP Overview Paper; developing from present practise

The High Level Commission Overview Paper suggests discussions take place, among other on the following issues:
The following excerpts regard aspects of these issues. Section 3 of the Overview Paper addresses present practice, departing from the assumption that every community, formal or informal, does name the features of their physical environment for way finding and general communication on localized resources and sites. Sections 4 and 5 addresses issue of the design of reforms and the sequencing of phases.

Section 3.2 provides details on the issues of land and housing informality and the lack of official recognition. In developing nations, informal land occupation is rife. In addition to immediate adverse effects, the paper also notes that lack of property titles disadvantages owners, whether individuals or businesses, in numerous ways. For example, they have less access to public infrastructure than titled land owners. "Only when land holders have official addresses and land deeds do municipal utilities find it financially feasible to incur the fixed costs of installing power and phone lines, and other services. With secure property rights, an electricity provider, for example, has an address where it can provide and monitor services as well as collect payments. Residents of informal settlements have no such services and are forced to spend time meeting basic needs, such as travelling to find water." (p. 11)

While one must agree that a utility provider needs a locally recognized (post) address, it may be questioned, whether full ownership rights are needed to provide the mentioned address. Rather, it is proposed that the addressing effort be conceived as an early step in the formalisation process. In fact, the Overview Paper refers to pilot cases, which postpone the formal registration of titles. Instead, simple, low-cost, locally tailored methods are applied, which are rooted in local values, build on existing practice, and - importantly - match the value of land (p. 17). As for technology issues, the paper refers to Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems, and calls for reconciliation of registration systems with cadastral systems used by authorities, to modernize both systems and to make information available to the public. These issues are developed upon below in sections 4 and 5.

3. The notion of place names; the cultural dimension

The main function of place names is to identify the place: the market place, the street, the stream, the mountain, the administrative unit, etc. Consequently, the place name must be unique within an area and practical in use (short, easy to pronounce, etc.). These demands are fairly easy to fulfil, which leaves the deciding body much freedom in choosing, if the place name shall influence people, by referring to historical events or to persons, or if the place name shall be restricted to its main function, say, by referring to the location to which the road leads, to terrain elements like ridges or moorlands, or by using the names of flowers or birds, etc. as road names.

Neutral referents Influencing referents
Locations
Terrain elements
Flora and fauna
Historical events
Persons
Fig. 2 Neutral and influencing referents for place names.

Place names are found on topographic and other maps. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) and its 22 geographical/linguistic divisions are addressing toponymic (place name) guidelines, computerization and gazetteers, terminology, and training courses. Postcodes (Raper et al, 1992) or geocodes  identify a point or area at the surface of the earth. Examples of coding schemes include the postal or ZIP code, and the likewise world-wide but less detailed UN/LOCODE. Within the European Union, the standardisation of Postal Services is an issue within the DG Internal Market. A standard has been issued on postal addresses, their representation on postal items and their electronic exchange: CEN EN 14142-1:2003 Postal services - Address databases - Part 1: Components of postal addresses. Guidelines or regulations addressing municipal and related use may be found occasional, e.g in Denmark (2002), Norway (1986),  Shanghai (1998; 1_2 3_6), and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. A survey on Markup Languages for Names and Addresses, prepared around 2002, last modified January 2004, is available.

A standard for road networks and road-related data exists in terms of the GDF European standard CEN/TC 278, 1995, and the international standard ISO 14825:2004: Intelligent transport systems, Geographic Data Files (GDF).  The GDF standard specifies the conceptual and logical data model and the exchange format for geographic data bases (Cagdas, 2007; wiki).

Political and cultural implications of place names

The issue is introduced by reference to an event in 1977 within the Baltic countries (Meyhoff, 1990). The German, Jewish and Swedish minorities in Estonia and Latvia suffered from general restrictions in the use of their languages during the 1930s. Especially in Latvia, the old place names were replaced by Latvian names, even in districts, where the national minority amounted to the majority (op.cit.: pp. 58, 85). Following the German occupation in 1940 in some regions the German city names were again used officially, and several streets were named after leading Nazis (p. 79). Finally, the Russian influence after 1945 implied that several streets were named after Russians (p. 108). A quoted letter of 17 Latvian communists from 1977 explicitly refers to this latter practice as one example of Soviet Russian suppression of Latvian language and culture.

The mentioned behaviour may be related to research in geography on territoriality. Robert David Sack signifies territoriality as a human, spatial strategy to affect, influence, or control resources and people, by controlling area (Sack, 1968: 1, cf. 19). The 17 communists consider place naming a means of communicating influence, and so most people would do. However, the practice of place naming doesn't seem to have caught much attention from scholars of human territoriality. For example, Torsten Malmberg's study of human territoriality seems to by-pass the potential rôle of street names in expressing territoriality. He refers to street-gangs of Chicago who paint their names on a street or wall near their hang-out (Malmberg, 1980:94). A bureaucratic procedure concerning street names and place names may well convey the same message of domination.

Danish experiences from the mid-1970s suggest that local bodies, in casu municipalities, are prepared to find resources to name roads within their territory, partly due to incentives explained by the notion of territoriality (Stubkjær, 1992). The local community may need support in terms of paradigms for the naming and signing processes, and for the needed paper work.

4. Geographic information systems for administrative purposes. Cadastral systems and land registration. Motivation of a sequenced development.

A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analysing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location. Practitioners also define a GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system (QuotationSource). - Before the computer age, governments, judiciaries, and city administrations stored geographically referenced information in cadastral systems and in land registries. Cadastral systems developed in Europe from the 1700s, based on large scale mappings and serving taxation purposes. During the 1900s, the term expanded to include (city, municipal) recordings of streets, buildings, pipes and other technical infrastructure. In modern terms, we may say that a cadastre is a parcel-based GIS, which according to statute law records units of immobile property, their identifiers and physical features (Stubkjær, 2006; Restored version). - Deeds registration developed in cities and at the local courts of principalities before the cadastres. While the attributes of the cadastres regarded measurable objects, the attributes of the deeds registration regarded documents: The time of recording, the parties, and a summary of content, namely of the legal transaction taking place. In some places, they improved to become title systems fixed by law e.g. 1783 in Prussia, or they emerged independently as the Torrens Title system in South Australia from 1858. The notion of land registration refers to the registering of ownership of estates in land. The completeness of registration within a jurisdiction and the legal effects of the recordings may vary.

Motivation of a sequenced GIS development.

Now it appears as evident that the establishment of a GIS of place names and geocodes is simpler than including also information on physical features, but a place name GIS, which is recognised by the local community and includes the name(s) of the occupier(s), serves the provider of utility services, and thus has merits in its own right. Moreover,  the establishment of a GIS on physical features of lots and accommodations, some being visible from public space, is simpler than including also information on legal issues. However, the physical features GIS, again with name(s) of occupier(s) provide sufficient information to serve as a basis for municipal or similar local taxation. Such tax establishes a stable and formalized relation between users of land and representatives of the community, and thus it provides a basis for developing the institution of property rights on the basis of local customs.

This sequenced development may be further motivated by drawing upon the notion of levels of measurement (Stevens, 1946): Nominal, ordinal, and ratio. The nominal and ordinal scales suffice for place name GISs and thus explains, why such GISs are relatively cheap to establish.

Finally, substantial work has recently been made in pointing to the the benefit of introducing in Africa what is called Situs Addressing Systems (UNECA geoinfo).

Motivations, similar to those above, and detailed advices are provided by the manual of Catherine Farvacque-Vitkovic et al (2005): Street Addressing and the Management of Cities, published by the World Bank and available as eBook. The needs and the solution were presented at the World Bank's Urban Forum 2005, SESSION V -- LEARNING AND INNOVATION by Catherine Farvacque, Lead Urban Specialist, Africa Region, and Roberto Chavez, Lead Urban Specialist, Urban Unit, see pdf. The idea to renounce on cadastral details was motivated already in 1999, see Fourie and Nino-Fluck.

5 Technology available for a phased implementation

The OpenStreetMap is a project aimed at creating and providing free geographic data such as street maps. The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways.
The site is based on the idea that people world-wide collect (street) coordinates by means of consumer-grade GPS or GNSS receivers (priced from about  € 100).  The site provides references to software, which allows for attributing locations with place names and for uploading the result.

Similar, but based on information related only to single points, and hence less versatile, is Google Earth and TerraWiki.

The people of the OpenStreetMap project invite to 'mapping weekends' in different locations and help constitute 'mapping parties'. The potential of gaining support from municipalities seems yet not explored, perhaps because the mapping activity so far took place in parts of the world, where local authorities are well supplied with maps and other locational data (but see examples from Kinshasa, centre of 3rd largest city in Africa). In Spain, the National Mapping Agency, another potential partner, agreed to provide information for the project (Source; July 2007).

6 Discussion

7 Conclusion



References

Cagdas, Volkan (2007) A note on the GDF standard. 3 p. (Cache)
Farvacque-Vitkovic et al (2005) Street Addressing and the Management of Cities. The World Bank. Directions in Development, nr 32923. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CMUDLP/Resources/461753-1160058503655/Street_Addressing_Manual.pdf?resourceurlname=Street_Addressing_Manual.pdf
Fourie, Clarissa, and Orlando Nino-Fluck (1999) Cadastre and Land Information Systems for Decision-Makers in the Developing World. UN-FIG Conference on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development, Melbourne, Australia, 25-27 October 1999. http://www.sli.unimelb.edu.au/UNConf99/sessions/session8/fourie.pdf (2007-03-28)
Gottsegen, Jonathan (1997 ?): Modeling Human Conceptions of Regions and Boundaries in Land Use Debates. - Position Paper for NCGIA Intiative 21: Formal Models of Common-sense Geographic Worlds. http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/~jgotts/i21/position.html
Malmberg, Torsten. 1980: Human territoriality - Survey of behavioral territories in man with preliminary analysis and discussion of meaning. The Hague: Mouton.
Raper, J.  Rhind, D. and J. Shepherd ( 1992) Postcodes: The new geography, Longman Group UK Ltd., Harlow, England.
Sack, R. (1986) Human territoriality: Its theory and history. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Stubkjær, E (1992) The development of national, multi-purpose spatial information systems - Danish experiences in a theoretical context. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 16 (3) (May/June 1992) 209-217.
Vuolteenaho, J. (2019) Critical Toponymies: The Contested Politics of Place Naming. Edited by Lawrence D. Berg and Jani Vuolteenaho, Ashgate, Burlington, VT, 2009


Erik Stubkjær, est_land-aau-dk, 2019-03-11, 2007-08-23 on GDF and OpenStreetMap; -03-26 ; 2006-09-04