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Planopedia

Clear, accessible definitions for common urban planning terms.

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I-84 to I-5 Interstate Freeway in Portland Oregon with Long Exposure Vehicle Traffic Motion

Vehicle Miles Traveled

A measure of the demand for vehicle travel on public roadways, VMT provides a metric for evaluating the potential impact of road projects and developments and could become an increasingly useful tool for assessing road usage taxes.

Single-Family Housing Construction

Entitlements

In the context of planning and development, an entitlement is the legal agreement between a government and a landowner to allow a proposed development.

Empty Road

Car-Centric Planning

'Car-centric planning' refers to urban planning that privileges the private automobile as a primary transportation mode, often to the exclusion of people who walk, bike, or use public transit.

Colorado

Discretionary Approval

Discretionary approval requires an appointed or elected body of officials to decide whether or not to proceed with a development. Discretionary approval is usually reserved for development proposals that don't conform to zoning or building codes, but other regulatory triggers can also create the need for a discretionary approval process.

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

Development Approval Process

A development approval process decides whether or not to allow a proposed development project to proceed with construction. There is plenty of room for interpretation, both legal and political, about what a development approval process can or should entail.

walkable street

Walkability

Walkability refers to the ability to safely walk to services and amenities within a reasonable distance, usually defined as a walk of 30 minutes or less.

Garden City

Garden City

Born as a reaction to the crowded, dirty conditions in turn-of-the-century London and other industrial cities, the Garden City movement offers an idealized planned community designed to join elements of town and country.

Lyft

Transportation Network Companies

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), provide on-demand transportation services through app-based platforms to create a new level of convenience for riders—and a host of challenges for policymakers and regulators.

An overhead image of a large wooden building as it's being constructed.

By-Right Development

A by-right approval (also known as an as-of-right approval) is granted when a development proposal strictly conforms to zoning and building codes and, thus, qualifies for construction without requiring discretionary approval.

Transit Oriented Development

Smart Growth

Smart growth describes an approach to planning and development that prioritizes compact built environments, designed for benefits to the economy and the environment.

Washington D.C. - The National Mall

City Beautiful

Known for grand buildings and sweeping green spaces, the City Beautiful movement combined philosophy and architecture into a powerful planning ideology that still drives urban design into the present day.

Downtown Skyline

Infill Development

Billed as an alternative to urban sprawl, infill development encourages the development of underused or vacant land in existing urban areas to increase density and place new development near existing resources and infrastructure.

Venice Beach Pedestrian and Bike Path

Micromobility

Micromobility is an umbrella term encompassing a variety of small, generally low-speed vehicles and conveyances that can be electric or human-powered and privately owned or part of shared fleets.

Agrihood

Conservation Development

Conservation development combines the development of land with the protection of natural resources.

Suburban Pittsburgh

White Flight

'White flight' refers to the exodus of white Americans from central cities to suburbs in the early and mid-20 century, a phenomenon which led to declining tax revenue and business closures that created lasting damage to urban neighborhoods.

Ventura County

Urban Growth Boundaries

Some cities and regions limit the growth of sprawl by setting an urban growth boundary—a strict geographic limit on where real estate development can occur.

Suburban development in Long Island, NY

Suburb

Another term lacking a consensus definition in the field of planning, "suburb" is usually deployed to describe residential communities outside central urban areas.

Robert Moses at the ribbon-cutting for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Robert Moses

Known to some as the 'master builder' and to others as a villain in the history of New York City's development, Robert Moses was an influential and controversial city official who guided the construction of hundreds of projects in the mid-20th century.

Greenfield Multi-Family

Greenfield Development

Greenfield land has remained untouched by previous development. Some definitions of greenfield land also include agricultural land. Thus, greenfield development encroaches on the natural environment to expand the built environment.

Northern California Toll Lane

Congestion Pricing

Congestion pricing raises the cost of driving on certain roadways at certain times, reducing traffic,encouraging alternate transportation modes, and generating revenue from the use of infrastructure.

An image of historic Penn Station when it was first built in 1910, viewed from the outside with people, carriages, and streetcars passing by.

Historic Preservation

Historic preservation is a controversial, highly contested cause, with a long history of failures and successes in the United States.

New York City Public Housing Project

Public Housing

Born out of the progressive ideals of the New Deal and a desire to improve the standard of living in poor urban neighborhoods, American public housing has taken several forms as political opinion about subsidized housing shifts.

A aerial view of Ladera Ranch, California, showing a variety of buildings and open space.

Master Planned Communities

Now frequently associated with retirees and sprawling developments in the U.S. Sun Belt, master planned communities, also known as new towns or planned communities, were invented as an escape from the haphazard growth of urban areas in the mid-20th century.

Chicago Public Housing

Urban Renewal

Ostensibly intended to improve "blighted" neighborhoods and provide better housing conditions, urban renewal often involved displacement and the wholesale destruction of urban communities.

Exurban Development

Exurbs

Farther out than suburbs but still connected to a major urban center, exurbs lie at the ever-shifting border between urban and rural spaces and are defined by economic ties to a city, low density housing, and high population growth.

D.C. Comp Plan

Comprehensive Plans

The comprehensive plan, sometimes also referred to as a master plan or a general plan, is the foundational document of long-term planning and zoning in the United States.

California Sprawl

Sprawl

Sprawl is one of the most common terms used to describe built environments in the United States and the world. It can be applied to urban, suburban, and exurban settings, and it's almost never a compliment.

Pacific Electric streetcar

Streetcar Suburbs

Named after the mode of transportation that made their existence possible by dramatically reducing travel times, streetcar suburbs are communities located along streetcar lines farther out from city centers, on the periphery of the urban areas in the late 19th century.

Las Vegas Sprawl

Regional Planning

Regional planning addresses planning issues that cross local jurisdictional boundaries, like transportation or watershed protection. In other examples, regional planning offers a holistic approach to the interconnected systems and dynamics that shape physical and cultural landscapes.

Building Heights and Step-Backs

Height Limits

Height limits are a critical component of almost every zoning code in the United States.

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