theme parking

English

Alternative forms

• theme-parking

Etymology

theme park +‎ -ing

Noun

theme parking (uncountable)

1. (derogatory, urban studies) The transformation into something resembling a theme park.

   Synonym: Disneylandification

   • 2004, Steven Adler, On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way, SIU Press, →ISBN, page 28:

     But Broadway's economic survival would be a Pyrrhic victory of sorts if artistic invention is slowly leached out in an attempt to make the Great White Way a New York outpost of the theme park–ing of America.

   • 2005, “theme parks”, in Robert Gregg, Gary W. McDonogh, Cindy H. Wong, editors, Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture, Routledge, →ISBN, page 722:

     “Theme parking” is also an accusation leveled against many recent urban development schemes as well as the creation of new private public spaces (such as malls).

   • 2006, Eric Kluitenberg, Hybrid Space: How Wireless Media Mobilize Public Space, Nai010 Publishers, →ISBN:

     Architecture and urban design can also function as critical artistic practices that allow us to capture something more elusive than what is represented by notions such as the theme-parking of cities.