KEY TERMS

 A

Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU)

An independent, additional unit on a residential property, such as an apartment above a garage, that allows for greater density in a neighborhood. Often on a small-scale, these residences provide affordable housing for singles, generational living, etc. ADUs are also called granny flats or mother-in-law apartments.

Adaptive Re-Use

Rather than demolishing a building and building a new one, adaptive re-use involves making changes to an existing building in order for it to be used for a new purpose. Those changes may be programmatically or aesthetically driven. And changes often involve making the building compliant with current safety or environmental regulations. The popularity of many adaptive re-use building challenge the old modernist maxim “form follows function”. With adaptive re-use building, function often follows form and the result is often both cool and useful.

Affordable Housing

Housing that costs no more than 30% of a household’s annual income, whether through rent or mortgage payments, is considered “affordable” by definition of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD).   

B

Ballet of Street Life

A term coined by Jane Jacobs in her book Death and Life of Great American Cities. The ballet of street life describes the dynamic beauty that is on display in ordinary neighborhoods as residents and other users of the space carry out the everyday rhythms of daily life. This ballet is ordinary and spontaneous, but it also requires certain conditions in order to become manifest. It usually requires a certain level of residential density and sufficient mix of uses to provide the requisite activity for the ballet to ensue.

Belonging

A sense of fitting in with a particular place, a particular group of people, and/or with the ethos or narrative of a place. Belonging can also be described as the subjective experience of shalom. 

Block Grid (vs. Cul de Sac)

A traditional street design in which streets are laid out in a relatively even grid of parallel and perpendicular corridors. The block grid is fine grained and diffuse, which allows travelers to choose from vitally limitless options to get from one point to another. 

Buffering

A physical feature that serves to protect pedestrians or bicyclists from automobile traffic. It often takes the form of street trees, landscaping, bollards, or cars parked parallel to the sidewalk.

Built Environment

The material world can be divided into the natural environment and the built environment. So the easiest way to define the built environment is to say that it includes everything that is not the natural environment. When we think along these lines, our minds naturally turn to buildings. But we need to be careful to not stop our imaginations at buildings, because the built environment also includes things like benches, bridges, and sidewalks. And we need to include the easily overlooked space between the buildings as part of the built environment. We need to keep this in mind because a great deal of our public life is enacted in the space between buildings. And lastly, it may surprise some to know that in some cases, trees, flowers, bushes, and grass can be part of the built environment if they were planted and/or arranged by people.  

Bonding (Social Capital)

The social capital that exists among people who know each other really well. Extended families, tight knit ethnic enclaves, religious communities, and some neighbors can enjoy a high degree of bonding social capital. 

Bridging (Social Capital)

Bridging social capital is a measure of relationships that cross over lines of similarity. Friendships and associations that are formed among people of different racial groups, religious communities, or neighborhoods.

C

Charm

Used by James Howard Kunstler to describe “the quality of inviting us to participate in another pattern.” For example a charming person “makes himself ‘permeable’ and invites you to do likewise, so that the two patterns of your personality may intersect for a while.” Cities that successfully develop patterned relationships between buildings, walls, and streets are in effect charming places, inviting one set of patterns to interact with other patterns in the built environment.

Charrette

A planning tool that involves a multi-day event in which all of the stakeholders for a particular area are brought together to work out a creative solution that everyone can agree on.

Chronological Connectivity

Coined by James Howard Kunstler, this phrase refers to the idea that we are connected in time to those who were before us and those who will come after us. To acknowledge the generational learnings of design and city building and build upon that knowledge honors our humanity and connections while also recognizing there is a fundamental order that exists in our world and we are part of a larger organism.

Church Gathered / Church Scattered

The church is not a building or an event, but the people of God. Therefore, as Christians, we don’t go to church, but rather we are the church. And yet gathering as a local expression of the universal church is an important part of our identity as disciples of Christ. Therefore, it is helpful to distinguish between who we are as the church gathered and the church scattered. The church gathered usually refers to the church in corporate worship. And the church scattered usually refers to disciples of Christ who are following Jesus at home, at work, and in other settings. A related concept is Abraham Kuyper’s notion of the organic and the institutional church.

City Beautiful Movement

An era of urban design (1890s-1920s) that promoted the beautification of cities, particularly in regard to developing monumental buildings and spaces of grandeur. The movement in the United States was ignited through a large-scale elaboration designed by Daniel Burnham as the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The City Beautiful Movement led to some iconic places such as the National Mall in Washington DC and the New York Public Library.

Civic Art

According to James Howard Kunstler, this is “the effort we make to honor and embellish the public realm with architecture and design, in order to make civic life possible.” This suggests that making beautiful buildings and arranging them thoughtfully to define public space is not a superfluous act.

Civic Sphere

All of our associations with people who are not family and close friends. The civic sphere includes the social dimension and the public dimension. 

Common Grace

Non-salvific blessings that God makes available to those within the covenant community and those without. Common grace includes natural blessings, restraint from evil, and civic virtue.

Communitas

An especially strong bond of community that is formed through a ground undergoing a challenge or strife together.

Complete Street

A street that is designed to safely accommodate several modes of transit, including pedestrians, bicyclists, buses, street cars, and automobiles. Complete Street advocates call for streets to be safe and navigable for all types of users, ages 8 to 80. A Complete Street does not give priority to the automobile but provides ample sidewalks with trees and on-street parallel parking to create a safety buffer for pedestrians. Protected bicycle lanes are encouraged, as well as single-use bus lanes where traffic volume warrants.

Curb Cuts

Any place where there is a ramp cut into a sidewalk to allow for the passage of automobile traffic, such as entry drive aisles to parking lots, driveways, and street intersections. Curb cuts may also provide access for strollers and wheelchairs between the sidewalk and the street. Environments with numerous curb cuts for automobile access are unsafe for pedestrians because they create ambiguity about who has the right of way between the pedestrian and the automobile.

D

Desire Path (Line)

A worn path that is divergent from the main, formal sidewalk or trail, which often reflects the most efficient or interesting pathway that pedestrians choose to take. Desire paths result from where humans prefer to walk rather than where paths are formally created. They are responses to the fine-grained detail on the ground of how and where we walk.

Density (urban)

A physical state that refers to the number of people, goods, and services within a specific geographic area. Urban density is an important factor for determining how cities function. Areas with more people and services tend to promote socioeconomic integration and sustainability, sociability, and physical health. Density is distinct from crowding, which is a psychological state that makes one feel a lack of control in being able to retreat from crowds and noise.

Displacement

The unintended effect of growing investments in neighborhoods and communities when the long-term, local populations of residents and business owners are unable to stay and benefit from the new economic investments and resources because they are effectively priced out of their own neighborhood by rising property taxes and more expensive amenities.  

E

Edge Effect

A term from urban designer, Jan Gehl, that asserts the edge is the preferred location for standing or sitting when people first enter the borders and edges of public spaces. People prefer to sit in areas with a view to the pedestrian flow, which are most often located at the boundary of the public spaces. Benches with a good view of human activities will be used more than others since people watching is one of the main attractions to using public spaces.

Embedded Church

Churches built prior to World War II can be called embedded churches because they facilitate direct connections between the interior space of the church building and the public space of the wider society outside. These churches usually come right up to the sidewalk and often have either a very small parking lot or no parking lot at all. The buildings of these embedded churches tend to stand out in the neighborhood by being taller and/or more grandiose in style than the rest of the buildings on the block. There are other kinds of embedded churches however. Storefront churches, warehouse churches, churches renting schools, movie theaters, or other buildings can be considered embedded churches if they are in located in walkable neighborhoods. 

Embodiment

Existence through the materiality of a physical body. The bodies of humans are not a mistake or a temporary condition, but are an intentional, permanent, and good attribute of human existence. God intends for us to live human life in the body. 

Enclosure

A quality of public space that is achieved when the height of walls and the space between the buildings create the feeling of an outdoor hallway or an outdoor room. Achieving enclosure has been a long-standing value in town planning but is largely ignored in automobile-oriented development. 

Entitlements (City or Land Use)

The permits that any development has to obtain from the governing municipality in order to construct new buildings, rehabilitate old buildings, or change the use of a building.

Eyes on the Street

A term coined by Jane Jacobs in Death and Life of Great American Cities. Eyes on the street describes the increased safety that results in ordinary people watching other ordinary people as they go about their business on a neighborhood street. Those watching might include people looking out of a window from their apartment, shopkeepers, or other people on the street. A neighborhood requires a certain level of density, buildings that face the street, and buildings that come right up to the sidewalk to achieve sufficient eyes on the street. Jacobs contends that it is the eyes on the street that best provides safety for users of most streets. Jacobs is not opposed to the deployment of police officers or even security guards in certain settings, but she believes that they cannot maintain safety as effectively as eyes on the street.

F

Food Desert

A lack of grocery stores and other options for healthy affordable food in a particular neighborhood. Food deserts often cause residents to eat highly processed or fast food offerings which lead to obesity, diabetes, and other public health issues.

Fragmentation

A condition of contemporary life largely fueled by post war automobile-oriented development in which different aspects of our lives and different groups of people with whom we interact are separated by geography.

G 

Gentrification

The process of neighborhood change that happens when a previously disinvested area is infused with new investment, primarily through real estate development. The rehabilitation of older building stock and new construction leads to increasing property values and corresponding higher-end neighborhood amenities. This evolution often results in demographic shifts as wealthier and more educated residents move in to the neighborhood and the long-term, local population is often priced-out. There is tension among city planners, developers, and sociologists about whether or not gentrification is a negative dynamic. The infusion of economic investment in a previously disinvested community is beneficial to the neighborhood; however, methods for encouraging investment while not pricing out the long-term residents need to be sought to mitigate displacement.

Greenfield Development

Development that occurs on land which has not been previously developed. It most often happens on the edges of suburban and exurban areas and often requires installation of new infrastructure (streets, sewer, stormwater).

Greyfield Development

Development that usually occurs on sites that were previously retail strip centers or big box stores, which have become ghost malls or big box shells. Oftentimes there is a large expanse of asphalt or “greyfield” associated with the site, though hazardous environmental conditions are not usually present.

H

Hospitality

Making room for another.  Hospitality is often viewed instrumentally such as inviting one’s boss to dinner in hopes of getting a promotion. But Kingdom hospitality is distinguished by being selfless. Kingdom hospitality involves showing concern for the vulnerable and for those who cannot reciprocate. 

Hospitable Neighborhoods

The layout of neighborhoods and houses in the neighborhood can either encourage relationships to develop and to grow or they can isolate those who live there and estrange visitors. A hospitable neighborhood is one that makes it easy to meet people one doesn’t already know and to get to allow relationships to develop naturally over time. 

HUD

U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, a federal agency that was officially created as a Cabinet level agency in 1965 with the passage of the Department of Housing & Urban Development Act. Dedicated to helping Americans meet their housing needs, the Department works to increase homeownership and access to affordable housing, while enforcing the laws that prohibit housing discrimination. HUD distributes millions of dollars in federal grants every year to bolster affordable housing supply. The benefits of the agency have been contested among housing advocates for decades.

Human Scale

A physical design scale that is used to create built environments that are oriented to a person. This includes intentionally designing places that are walkable and provide sensory engagement and points of interest for human beings. Jan Gehl, a Danish architect, is a leading champion of human scale design.

I

Inclusionary Zoning

A zoning practice that requires developers to dedicate a certain percentage of units in each housing development they build for rents that are affordable for a person who is only making a portion (30%, 50%, or 60%) of the area median income. A city adopts this as a method to increase the supply of affordable housing.

Incremental Belonging

Any positive experience of belonging that helps one take a step towards Kingdom belonging. The experience of being in a school play or feeling at home in a local coffee shop can both be examples of incremental belonging. 

Incremental Development

Development that occurs on a smaller scale over a longer period of time, in contrast with large scale development such as suburban retail centers, large apartment buildings, professional sports complexes, office towers, etc. Incremental development tends to happen on the neighborhood and grassroots level with opportunities for thoughtful adaptation and growth through iteration with the local community.

Induced Demand

Demand that has been realized or generated by improvements to transportation infrastructure. Traffic engineering does not account for “pent up” demand. For example, adding lanes to highways to relieve congestion does not resolve congestion because the expansion does not account for the demand that has been latent and emerges once the roads are expanded. Many times people choose not to drive if there is bad congestion. Relieving congestion only encourages more people to drive, leading to congested roads once again.

Infill Development

Development that occurs on vacant lots and parking lots or replaces dilapidated buildings within the city. It usually has existing buildings around it and is oftentimes referred to as filling in the “missing tooth” on a city block.

Insular Church

Those churches that began to be built after the Second World War tended to look different from the ones built prior to this time. These can be called insular churches because they are insulated from direct contact with the community that surrounds them. These churches tend to include a large parking lot that acts as a buffer between the space inside the church building and the space of the world outside the church property. These churches tend to sit on lots that are ten acres or more. The insular church is not set up to attract (or even communicate with) the pedestrian on the street, because the layout of the property doesn’t encourage pedestrian traffic. The church is oriented toward people driving cars. The church visually relates to the neighborhood through its large sign(s) directed toward the street. The architecture of the building is most likely to be utilitarian.

Intimate Belonging

The kind of belonging that we experience with a spouse or maybe a best friend. Joseph Meyers describes this kind of belonging as ‘naked and unashamed’. With intimate belonging, we can maintain a very close physical distance of 0 to 18 inches without feeling uncomfortable. 

K

Kingdom Belonging

The kind of belonging one experiences as part of God’s covenant community. It satisfies our deepest need and longing. It is the subjective experience of the condition of shalom. 

L

Liminal Space

A space between two realms that can help people navigate between them. A comfortable gathering space outside of one’s apartment or a front porch close enough to the sidewalk to allow casual conversation are examples of liminal spaces. 

Local Culture

The accumulation, distillation, and transmission of the stories that are generated by the people of a particular place. Wendell Berry believes that everyone has an obligation to gather and hold the materials of local culture in order to support a healthy community.   

Localism

An intentional preferential stance towards the local. Many innovations in communication, transportation, and organizational efficiency offer enhancements through transcending the local. Localism pushes back against these tendencies by supporting local farms, local beer, local stores, and etc. 

M

Missing Middle Housing

A term used for housing types such as duplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, apartment mansions, and live-work units. This type of medium density housing was produced within a variety of walkable urban contexts before World War II. With the post WWII developments of suburban single-family homes, city regulatory constraints through zoning, and auto-oriented development patterns, new construction of this type of housing has become largely absent from our cities, which is why it has been termed “missing.” Missing middle housing is particularly beneficial to creating diverse neighborhoods as they provide a transitional and affordable step for shifting demographics, such as young adults starting a first job to elderly who wish to downsize but remain in the neighborhood.

Missing Tooth Concept

An empty lot in the middle of an urban block, which feels like a missing tooth. This occurs where a building is demolished or a parking lot replaces a building.

Missional Theology - See also Mission of God

Mission is not one of the tasks the church undertakes, but rather mission is at the heart of what the church is. God has a mission and the church is God’s mission strategy for the world. Insofar as a church loses it’s mission to the world, the church ceases to function as a church. Missional churches don’t expect the world to do the hard work of crossing cultural boundaries to come to church, but rather encourage members to seek opportunities to engage neighbors on their turf and in their terms.

Mission of God (Missio Dei) - See also Missional Theology

The Mission of God is to reconcile all of creation to Himself. God in His sovereignty is responsible for the success of this mission and He will bring about its completion according to His perfect timeline. God calls the church as His primary strategy for carrying out His mission. Therefore, mission is not one part of the church’s activity, but it it’s fundamental reason for existence.  

Mixed-Income Neighborhood

Zoning not only separates buildings by use, it also separates residential buildings by size and type effectively clustering residents of similar socioeconomic levels into the same neighborhood. A mixed income neighborhood bucks this trend by including residential buildings of a variety of price points in the same neighborhood.

Mixed-Use Development

Development that incorporates more than one type of use within the same building or neighborhood block, such as a building that has retail spaces on the street level with apartments on the floors above.

N

Neighboring

Being intentional about being a good neighbor - welcoming newcomers, borrowing stuff, offering help, keeping an eye out for unusual behavior. This is a relatively new word that has been coined to help recover a cultural practice that was once common but has been largely lost in many neighborhoods.  

O

Orange Juice Test

Can you send a 12 year old child unaccompanied to purchase orange juice in your neighborhood? This is a test not of your child, but of your neighborhood. Passing the Orange Juice Test indicates that your neighborhood has at least two of the four criteria for walkability. It shows that you live in a useful neighborhood (where one can walk to get groceries) and that walking is relatively safe.

P

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit that constitutes the jurisdiction of one particular church, over which one priest exercises spiritual authority. “Parish” can also refer to the active congregation of a particular church, but in many cases the geographical aspect of this term is quite strong. A resident of a particular parish may think of herself as connected to the parish church even though she doesn’t attend worship services there. Likewise, many parish priests and congregants think about the needs and concerns of the people living within their parish regardless of whether they come to church

Pedestrian Shed

The distance that a person would typically choose to walk rather than drive a car. A typical pedestrian shed is usually considered to be between 1/4 and 1/2 a mile although the distance can vary according to terrain and/or design.

Permeability

Conditions that make it relatively easy for pedestrians to get to and from places that are close to each other. The traditional street pattern of blocks on a grid is highly permeable. The arterial cul-de-sac street pattern is usually not permeable. Large institutions and limited access roads tend to hurt permeability.  

Personal Belonging

The kind of belonging we experience with our families and close friends. Personal belonging involves a high degree of trust among people and the sharing of sensitive information. With personal belonging we can maintain a close personal distance of 18 inches to 4 feet. 

Piano Effect

The sociological pattern highlighted by urban designer, Jan Gehl, that asserts that people will find a place to stand near the edge, or a corner, or a pillar, or a piece of furniture. These structures help define a place and provide a sense of safety and control for human beings. Gehl writes, “…with a nearby piano or column they are not alone but in good company and in charge of the situation” (Cities for People).

Private Realm

A realm that includes intimate and personal levels of relationships. The private realm can be contrasted with the civic realm. 

Proximity

The condition of being geographically close to something or someone. Technology purports to ‘erase distance’ and make proximity irrelevant. But proximity is essential to belonging and by ignoring it, we have brought loneliness and displacement upon ourselves. 

Place (and Space)

According to Walter Bruggerman “Place is storied space”. When our stories become inscribed on the walls, meaning gets attached to landmarks, and patterns become established; space becomes place. 

Place Attachment

A scholarly discipline that tries to account for how people become attached to places as well as for the range that exists among people who interact with a place. 

Placemaking

Investing in and sometimes creating meaningful public places in your community that work for your community. Placemaking can be initiated from the ‘top down’ or from the ‘bottom up’ but in either case it is extremely important for there to be community involvement at every step of the process.  Placemaking can be understood in contrast to homemaking. Homemaking has to do with the things we do to make our homes work for our families, placemaking has to do with things we do to make the public spaces of our communities work for our neighbors.

Placelessness

A malaise of contemporary life in which a particular terrain is no longer space but isn’t really place either. The construction of national retail chains and mass-produced houses tend to result in placelessness. Placelessness contributes to the crisis of belonging because placeless places don’t hold memories very well and therefore inhibit bonds of attachment from being formed. 

Public Belonging

The kind of belonging that we experience with those whom we may not know personally, but with whom we are temporarily united through some external commonality. We experience public belonging as fans of the same sports team, worshipers in the same sanctuary, or as denizens of the same town.  With public belonging we can appropriately interact with one another at distances of 12 feet or greater. 

R

Redlining

A real estate racial discrimination tactic that began in the 1930s by which specific neighborhoods that were predominantly comprised of low-income minorities were marked or “redlined” by banks as dangerous and undesirable places for investment, resulting in home loans being much more expensive or completely unobtainable in these areas. The effective result of this discriminatory lending practice precluded minorities from access to homeownership and thereby, impeded the building of generational wealth in these local communities. The Federal Housing Administration supported this practice through government-backed mortgages that included race-based criteria in their underwriting standards, reinforcing racial segregation in the United States. This practice continued until the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 to prohibit racial discrimination in housing. However, the effects of redlining are still seen today among numerous communities of color with high concentrations of poverty in our cities.

Rootedness

The characteristic of being in a particular place for a length of time that provides a sense of belonging or connection to the local community and the land. Rootedness is a way of deeply knowing a local context in order to speak to its history, values, and needs.

S

Shalom

Human flourishing in all of its dimensions - physically, relationally, and aesthetically. Shalom is a condition that is most fully achieved when humans are enjoying complete fellowship with God (Garden of Eden and New Jerusalem). Shalom can be experienced by degrees as we wait for the return of Christ. The reason we our desire for belonging is so strong is that belonging is the subjective experience of shalom.

Sprawl

The expansion of towns and cities induced by the rise of the automobile and use of single-family zoning in post-WWII America. It most often takes the shape of suburban and exurban developments that consist of single-family homes on large lots, strip malls, and big-box retail centers. With patterns of sprawl there is no town center and infrastructure is designed for car-dependency rather than the human scale and walkability. Charles Montgomery, the author of Happy City, uses the term “dispersal” in reference to sprawl to capture the physical state that occurs as place and people are dispersed or spread over greater distances.

Social Belonging

The kind of belonging we experience with people we recognize but may not yet know very well. This is the kind of belonging that we experience at church coffee hour, the neighborhood dog park, or at a PTA meeting. With social belonging we can comfortably maintain a distance of 4 to 12 feet. Social belonging is often overlooked as insignificant, but it is crucial for identity formation and for forming relationships in the private sphere.

Social Capital

The quality of relationships as an economic asset. Comparable to resource capital and human capital, but often overlooked. See also Bonding and Bridging. 

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

The conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health and quality-of life-risks and outcomes.

SDOH include such things as:

·      economic stability;

·      education access and quality;

·      health care access and quality;

·      neighborhood and built environment;

·      social and community context.

Social Infrastructure

A term coined by Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at NYU, to describe the places and organizations that provide social support for a neighborhood, such as public services and gathering spaces (parks, libraries, community centers) and physical design elements that allow neighbors to comfortably spend time outside (street trees, park benches, good sidewalks, front stoops). The quality of social infrastructure plays an important role in determining the overall physical and social well-being of a neighborhood.

Square

An outdoor room formed by the buildings that surround them. Squares are important gathering spaces for socializing but also for a place of respite in the midst of a city. Squares have been a casualty of the automobile-oriented development of the 20th century but are making a strong comeback. 

T

Tax Credits – Low Income Housing / Historic

A federal mechanism for funding affordable housing projects and historic rehabilitation projects by which investors receive a dollar for dollar reduction on their income tax owed. An investor purchases these tax credits from a qualifying developer. The developer then uses these funds to help pay for development projects.

Tactical Urbanism (or DIY Urbanism)

An experimental or incremental approach to making changes to the public space in a neighborhood that utilizes low cost materials and out of the box thinking. Tactical urbanism is usually a grass roots endeavor and often isn’t officially sanctioned by the municipal authorities. Tactical urbanism can be an effective means of getting a conversation going or expanding peoples’ imaginations as to what is possible.

 Third Place

A term coined by Ray Oldenburg to describe those places that we find ourselves visiting on a fairly regular basis that are not our homes and not our places of work. Third places can take a variety of forms. They can be coffee shops, pubs, barber shops, or even a collection of mailboxes near some seating. Third places play a crucial role in connecting people in a neighborhood and breaking down barriers presented by demographic differences. 

Thick Language (and Thin)

The kind of language that can effectively be used among people who enjoy a high degree of shared meaning with each other. Insofar as belonging involves being connected to a common story with others, the ability to employ thick language can be an indicator of belonging. See also shared meaning. 

Threshold

A portal that connects one realm to another. For many homes, the front door is a threshold between the private realm of the home and the civic realm of the outside world. An alternative arrangement is to have a yard surrounded by a low fence with a gate. This effectively moves the threshold out towards the civic realm of the sidewalk and creates a more social and hospitable environment. 

Traditional Neighborhood Design / Development

An approach to neighborhood design and development formulated particularly through leaders in the Congress for the New Urbanism. The main tenets include: the basic unit of planning is the neighborhood; the neighborhood is limited in size with a well-defined edge and a focused center; corridors and districts form boundaries between neighborhoods; the neighborhood is mixed-use and provides housing for mixed-incomes; buildings define public space; street patterns create a network that allows for a high number of alternative routes from one place to another in the neighborhood; and civic buildings are placed on preferential building sites as landmarks of importance and civil society.

Triangulation

A placemaking tactic that suggests having several activities or things to do will increase interaction with and sociability of a place.

U

Urban Renewal

A tragically misnamed government program that sanctioned the destruction of entire blocks in so called blighted neighborhoods. It was established by the Housing Act of 1949 and was in effect through the 1950s and 1960. This program failed to see the vibrancy and sustainability of organic neighborhoods that served primarily ethnic communities. Jane Jacobs provides a damning critique of this racist and ill conceived program in her Death and Life of Great American Cities.

W

Walkability

A measure of how much a particular neighborhood encourages or discourages walking. Jeff Speck identifies four basic principles of walkability. Walking in a neighborhood must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. Walkability was largely ignored during the era of automobile-oriented development but is making a comeback. 

Walk Score

A measure of how walkable a neighborhood is. Walk score is a fairly blunt tool and doesn’t pick up on many important aspects of walkability, but it helps to show the economic significance of walkability. A high walk score has been shown to have a significant impact on the value of a home or apartment. 

Wayfinding

Signage or illustrative directions and mapping systems that enable a person to orient themselves in a particular place and/or guide them in navigating between places. Clear wayfinding reduces human anxiety and encourages people to more freely explore and engage with places.

Z   

Zoning

The ubiquitous planning tool for much of the 20th century. Zoning relegates buildings designed for particular activities into discreet geographic zones. The fundamental assumption of zoning is that everyone will get to everywhere they need to go by driving an automobile. Zoning has been the driving force of the automobile-oriented development that was dominant in the second half of the 20th century.