Compiled while sitting through a three-hour public hearing and rethinking life choices.
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Are you a citizen trying to understand urban planning? A newly minted planner who keeps accidentally saying “zoning entitlement” in casual conversation? A mayor who treats public hearings as open-eyed nap practice?
You’ve come to the right glossary. Only planners can magically turn a small park into a placemaking activation node. This glossary features definitions that tell the real story. Look for the one not-real-term-but-should-be.
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Active Transportation – Walking, biking, scooting, and other low-carbon ways to arrive at a meeting to discuss why it’s too hard to walk or bike anywhere.
Affordable Housing – Technically, housing that costs no more than 30 percent of your income. Practically, a rhetorical device used in PowerPoints to mean everything and nothing. (NOTE: See “Sustainability”).
Area Plan – A document designed to organize land uses, dreams, and disappointment within a five-block radius.