Meanings
alternative theme-parking
- derogatoryuncountableurban studiesThe transformation into something resembling a theme park.
“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).
2005, “theme parks”, in Robert Gregg, Gary W. McDonogh, Cindy H. Wong, editors, Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture, Routledge, →ISBN, page 7222 more examples
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.
2004, Steven Adler, On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way, SIU Press, →ISBN, page 28Architecture 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.
2006, Eric Kluitenberg, Hybrid Space: How Wireless Media Mobilize Public Space, Nai010 Publishers, →ISBNSynonyms: Disneylandification
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe transformation into something resembling a theme park.
Origin
Cite this entry
theme parking. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/theme%20parking
“theme parking.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/theme%20parking. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “theme parking,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/theme%20parking.
Source: theme parking on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.