ribbon development
- noun
- Jargon
:
desarrollo en cinta
- The town's ribbon development along the main road has increased access to new homes.
Examples
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Many neighborhoods are suffering from ribbon development, with houses built too close to the highway.
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Ribbon development can lead to urban sprawl if not properly planned by city officials.
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Of course, prior to the automobile and ribbon development, they too contained rural zones or pockets.
Academic text (1990)
How Linear
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is partly derivable from the constituents: 'ribbon' evokes a long narrow strip and 'development' denotes a group of buildings, so a learner can infer a strip-like pattern of building. However, the precise technical sense (development sited specifically along roads/on outskirts) is a specialized, metaphorical extension and not fully predictable from the words alone, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Ribbon development comes from the image of a long, thin ribbon of houses or buildings stretched along a road, with new development following that line. That's why the phrase means 'building in a long, narrow line along a road'.