Planning Glossary
BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
CAVEmen: Citizens Against Virtually Everything
CEQA: Consultants Employment Quality Act [California Environmental Quality Act]
DBTD/DBTN: Two common vaccines used by planners to “fix” a project they don’t like. DBTD is technically Death By a Thousand Days and DBTN is Death By a Thousand Nicks [also known as the BED Principle—“Bleed ‘em Dry”]
Disneyfication: Architectural fad on a community scale.
Doczilla: Any technical report that should be caged rather than shelved.
DUDE: Developer Under Delusions of Entitlement
Fauxburb: Modern suburb replicating post WWII suburbs with eclectic architecture.
PowerPoint Poisoning: Nauseous state of mind and body induced by viewing “professional” presentations.
Sense of Immunity: Mistaken belief that land use regulation does not apply for a particular neighborhood or site.
SLAPP: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation
Additional Terms
Spinoffs of NIMBY:
BANYs Builders Against NIMBYs [Not In My Backyard Activists]
GOAH Gedoudaheah
GOOMBA Get out of my business area
GUMBY Gaze upon my backyard [Opponents of residential walls and fences]
KIIMBY Keep it in my backyard
NIABY Not in anyone’s backyard
NIMD Not in my district
NIMEY Not in my election year
NIMFOS Not in my field of sight
NIMFYE Not in my front yard either
NIMTOO Not in my term of office
NITL Not in this lifetime
NOPE Not on planet earth
NORF No observable redeeming features
NOT None of that
NOTE Not over there either
NUMBY Not under my backyard
PIITBY Put it in their backyard
QUIMBY Quit urbanizing in my backyard
WIIFM What’s in it for me?
YIMBY Yes in my backyard
Repetitive, monotonous design of buildings and places:
Anyplace syndrome: No ‘sense of place’
B4 and after: Big, bland, beige box…still. Less than inspiring architecture even with extensive landscaping.
Comprehensive Flan: The relatively bland, custard-like filling in many Comprehensive Plans.
Custard development: Bland clustered development.
Déjàvenue: An impression of having seen or experienced the same street before.
Gagplanistan: A place of massively meaningless planning.
Generica: The stores and strip malls you can see in any town in America.
McPlace: Standardized “sense of place.”
Nullibiety: State of being nowhere.
Pablumia: A universal name for urban communities whose ambiances of uniqueness and regional flavor have been eradicated in favor of cookie cutter chain retail stores, restaurants, background music, entertainment and interchangeable local residents all dressed as Americans. The word is from the baby food, Pablum, which has a bland consistency and is completely tasteless.
Placebo: A place that has the appearance, but none of the value of a real place.
Oatmeal Architecture: Contemporary bland, beige, stucco architecture.
Ranchburger: A one-story generic southwestern tract house.
Replaceable places: The same drive-ins, prefab motels, offices, and salesrooms on every road and corner.
Second Street: Average, lackluster or normal. Stemming from the fact that Second Street is the most common name in the United States.
Taupeville: A neighborhood that requires buildings to be all neutral colors, usually beige and taupe. Generic, non-descript, lacking in personality and boring. ‘Over the taupe’ implies something more creative or excessive.
Terrorforming: Extremely bad urban designing. The opposite of “terraform:” to change a planet’s surface and atmosphere so that life as it exists on Earth is possible.
Urban fabric softener: Generic zoning that smoothes out the distinctions between areas.
Vanilla: An adjective for a bland or boring design or plan.
Suburbia:
Betty Crocker Suburb: A suburb without child care facilities.
Blurb: Indistinguishable suburban neighborhoods.
Peter Pan Suburb: Suburb designed without consideration for the elderly.
Sitcom Suburb: Neighborhoods of traditional Cape Cod or colonial houses with neat front lawns.
Suburbidity: A thick, hazy condition of sense of place.
Practitioners:
Blandscape architect: Minimalist landscaper.
Bungalow Bill: Tract house architect.
CAVEman: Citizen against virtually everything.
Designosaur: Designer with an enormous impact.
DUDE: Developer under delusions of entitlement.
Hippodamist: A city planner [from Hippodamus, a fifth-century Greek architect, who planned the first city].
Inferior desecrator: Interior designer.
Landscraper: Landscape architect.
Meisterplanner: An artistic or epic planner.
Sense of place:
Scents of place: The odors, smells, aromas, and fragrances associated with a place. The most powerful of the senses is also the most overlooked in planning.
Sense of entry: The front door is big and far away.
Sense of immunity: Mistaken belief that land use regulation does not apply for a particular neighborhood or site.
