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Planopedia

Clear, accessible definitions for common urban planning terms.

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Two-lane street with pedestrian crossing island

Road Diet

A road diet ‘trims down’ multilane roadways by reallocating street space to uses other than car traffic, improving safety for pedestrians, encouraging multimodal travel, and enhancing overall livability.

Street in Paris Latin Quarter with row of bicycles, cobblestone street, and pedestrians

15-Minute City

The buzzword recently popularized by urbanists describes an urban form that dominated cities prior to the rise of autocentric planning.

Bus bench with "armrests" to prevent lying down

Defensive Urbanism

If you’ve ever noticed a public bench split in half by a metal bar, or a series of seemingly ornamental boulders blocking the sidewalk under a high-rise overhang, you’ve seen what is often described as defensive urbanism or ‘hostile architecture.’

Small boy riding bike on two-way paved bike trail

Bike Infrastructure

Safe and comprehensive bike facilities play a crucial role in keeping vulnerable road users safe, promoting biking as an everyday transit mode, and reducing carbon emissions and traffic congestion by encouraging a shift to more multimodal transportation.

Big Flat, California

Clean Water Act

The primary environmental law to regulate water pollution in the United States, the Clean Water Act, went into effect 50 years ago, on October 18, 1972.

Woonerf street with no curbs and trees in Lodz, Poland

Woonerf

The woonerf, a type of road design that encourages multimodal transportation and blends pedestrian and vehicle space, was born as a reaction to the car-centric development that began dominating American and European city planning in the mid-twentieth century.

Rendering of Culdesac Tempe development

Variances

Variances allow for development projects to deviate from the zoning code on a case-by-case basis—if the project developer can prove a unique economic or physical hardship.

Governors Island - South Island Rezoning

Zoning Amendments

Zoning amendments change the existing zoning code by either of two methods: changing the text of the zoning code or changing the zoning map.

SLOW painted on asphalt street

Traffic Calming

Traffic calming is a set of design interventions aimed at slowing or diverting car traffic to reduce the chance of crashes and improve safety for all road users.

View of buildings in Bangkok business district through extremely orange sunlight

Urban Heat Island Effect

Man-made surfaces and urban density contribute to higher temperatures, intensifying heat waves and posing a growing danger to public health.

Denver Region

Transect

In urbanism and planning, the term transect provides a conceptual framework for understanding how the scale of built environments can vary from place to place.

D.C. Land Use Map

Geographic Information Systems

GIS software, which combines location information with data about a range of other attributes, has become an indispensable tool for mapping and spatial analysis in urban planning and dozens of other fields.

Brooklyn, New York City

Redevelopment

Redevelopment includes all development projects that build new structures and land uses on a previously developed site. Understanding the nuances of redevelopment is critical for understanding the ways cities and communities change.

Side-by-side brick duplexes pictured on a sunny day.

Non-Conforming Uses

A non-conforming use is an existing building that would not be built under current land use regulations. While esoteric, the term is nonetheless critical to understanding the changes in development regulations over time.

Vacant home with foreclosure sign.

Land Bank

Land banks are public or private organizations that purchase, hold, redevelop, or otherwise manage foreclosed or abandoned properties with the goal of achieving community objectives such as affordable housing construction or public park space.

YIMBY

YIMBYs

YIMBY, an acronym standing for "Yes In My Backyard," describes advocates who support housing development as a response to the outcomes of restrictive zoning and planning policies.

Pop-Up Park

Tactical Urbanism

Tactical urbanism, one of the most common buzzwords in planning over the past decade, describes a variety of low-cost, incremental public realm design interventions.

"You are entering Jackson's downtown historic district" brown sign

Overlay Districts

A zoning overlay district superimposes an additional set of regulations over an existing zoning district, or multiple zoning districts.

San Fernando Valley

Induced Demand

“If you build it, they will come.”

A row of multistory, brick buildings in a small U.S. city, with retail uses on the ground floor and apartments above.

Incremental Planning

The concept of incrementalism can be applied to numerous fields and disciplines—one of which is planning. In the field of planning, the word incremental is usually used as an adjective to describe other planning words, such as code reform and development.

Public Comment

Planning Commissions

Planning commissions fill an influential advisory role in planning processes, maintaining citizen oversight of government planning powers and also providing a public forum for debate about the future of communities.

hand holding house key with house-shaped keychain and house in background

Supportive Housing

Supportive housing combines affordable housing with social services providers to help people experiencing homelessness, disability, or other hardships transition to permanent housing.

Portland Street

Automobile Dependency

Automobile dependency is a term used to describe households who must rely on private vehicles for everyday transportation, often due to a lack of safe pedestrian infrastructure, ineffective or absent public transit options, and sprawl.

Master-Planned Community

Planned Unit Development

A Planned Unit Development (PUD) is a specific type of plan or development commonly associated with master planned communities and sprawl. The specific definitions of a PUD vary by jurisdiction, but the term generally refers to a flexible approach to the planning of a variety of housing types and land uses on a relatively large portion of land.

Congestion

Level of Service

Level of Service (LOS) defines how well vehicle traffic flows along a street or road. LOS is one of the most influential metrics in planning, with critical relevance for both land use and transportation planning.

Hand holding house keys on house-shaped keychain

Area Median Income (AMI)

Frequently used to determine eligibility for housing assistance programs, Area Median Income measures the midpoint of an area’s income distribution.

Pedestrian Crosswalk

Vision Zero

First adopted by the Swedish parliament in 1997, Vision Zero is a strategy aimed at eliminating pedestrian deaths by improving road design and infrastructure with a focus on safety.

An image of stadium seats at Petco Park in San Diego, with new buildings under construction nearby in the background.

Density Bonuses

A density bonus offers development permissions beyond what's allowed by a zoning code as an incentive for developers to contribute to desired policy goals. Density bonus programs can offer numerous forms of incentives, and can be used as an incentive to address a variety of policy goals.

Wastewater California

CEQA

Designed to assess the environmental impacts of new projects and provide mitigation measures, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has a controversial history, sometimes serving as a convenient tool for groups intent on stopping or slowing development.

NIMBY Sign

NIMBYs

One of the most politically charged and controversial terms in planning, the acronym NIMBY stands for Not In My Back Yard.

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