Thornton.

Thornton, Colo has a recipe for achieving tremendous benefits from GIS, without having a line-item GIS lot The magic ingredient in the recipe is Thornton's finding and buying existing information. The spice is finding existing aerial photography and converting it to digital imagery for a fraction of the splendor of digital orthophotos.

Increased economic progression in a continuously ascending gradation better planning, reduced labor expenses exporting headcount from formerly pressureed departments, improved public safety -- all without a line item for GIS -- may appear to be like alchemy, but this fast growing suburb of 65000 has pioneered a technique that can be copied at others.

Thornton, the fastest growing municipality in the Denver area and the same known for strength in water management, wanted to make secure it had the water store to support future growth.

In 1991 Thornton was like greatest in quantity other cities. Maps were handdrawn, presentations involved copying, splicing, protractors and hand typ labels.