Glossary
Urban Planner Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential urban planner terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key urban planner vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in urban planner training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Affordable housing
- Housing for lower incomes.
- Comprehensive plan
- A long-range community plan.
- Density
- Units per acre.
- Equity
- Fair distribution of benefits.
- GIS
- Geographic information systems.
- Infill
- Building on vacant land in developed areas.
- Mixed use
- Combining housing and businesses.
- Planning commission
- A board reviewing plans.
- Public hearing
- A meeting for public input.
- Resilience
- Ability to recover from hazards.
- Setback
- Required distance from property lines.
- Site plan
- A drawing of proposed development.
- Transit-oriented development
- Growth near transit.
- Variance
- An exception to zoning.
- Zoning
- Rules for land use.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Urban Planner practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Urban Planner training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.