E-government and territorial management. A case of GIS exploitation in Milan

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in the e-government strategy related to territorial management. The authors aim at demonstrating the potential role of GIS to enforce the connection among the different information subsystems of the local governments (taxes and finance, real estate, transportation infrastructure and public services). The case proves that the successful implementation and development of a GIS project in local government is strictly related to four dimensions: the organisational coordination among the departments involved; the reengineering of information flows; the reengineering of the organizational processes that will use the geographical data (as a basic common level upon which different layers of data can be developed); integrability, flexibility, modularity of the GIS used.