Most Americans have a general understanding of what sprawl is, but do they have the words to describe different aspects of it, or different types of development patterns?

Delores Hayden, author of A Field Guide to Sprawl, tries to give them those tools.

Her book defines and discusses 51 terms that characterize modern building and development patterns. Dramatic aerial photographs by Jim Wark accompanying each definition bring her prose to life. His aerial images capture the large scale of many current development patterns.

Hayden argues that it is important that people do have the terminology because "Naming is critical to identification. Identification is critical to action." Having the terminology can help people define the problem, she emphasizes: "Knowing the slang phrases for everyday places sharpens observation." Most of the terms described in her book would likely be considered slang terms (and anti-sprawl).

A few of the terms are listed below. Test your knowledge of "sprawl talk" by matching the terms with a brief definition.

Sprawl Talk Terms
(Print this out and try it!)
1. ___  Edge nodes
2. ___  Snout house
3. ___  Boomburb
4. ___  Ground cover
5. ___  Water feature
6. ___  TOAD
7. ___  Starter castle
8. ___  Logo building
9. ___  Sitcom suburb
10. ___  Putting parsley around the pig
11. ___  Zoomburb
12. ___  Power center
13. ___  LULU
14. ___  Litter on a stick
15. ___  Ball pork
16. ___  Privatopia
17. ___  Rural slammer

Sprawl Talk Definitions
(Don't peek at the answers till you've guessed)
1. a house of exaggerated size and aspirations
2. neighborhoods of traditional Cape Cod or Colonial house with neat front lawns
3. construction of prisons in remote areas
4. landscaping a bad spot or bad project
5. a community where residents are legally bound to obey the covenants, conditions, and restrictions of a homeowner association
6. a grouping of several unconnected big box outlets (large discount stores)
7. locally unwanted land use
8. a stadium built with public funds for the use of a privately owned ball team
9. a place growing even faster than a boomburb
10. a building designed as a trademark that can be spotted from a distance
11. billboards
12. house with a protruding garage that takes up most of the street frontage
13. inexpensive, easily bulldozed building such as self-storage units, constructed to generate income while a developer holds land, waiting to build a more profitable project
14. growth areas of commercial real estate usually outside older downtowns and near interstate highways
15. temporary, obsolete, abandoned, or derelict site
16. a rapidly growing urban-sized place in the suburbs
17. artificially constructed display of water