How to name a subdivision

Last night I watched the film You, Me and Dupree. It was unimpressive — although not absolutely terrible — but it did remind me of one of my pet peeves.

In the film, one Carl Peterson works for a development company. His project, the Oaks at Mesa Vista, is not a vital part of the plot but it is interesting in the realm of urban planning and development.

When Carl and his boss (who happens to be his father-in-law) travel out to the location of the planned development — which is in a treeless dessert — Carl asks his testy boss if they shouldn’t change the name of the subdivision, bluntly asking “You know if were not going to have any trees, maybe we should change the name.”

Such irrelevant and perhaps irreverant naming of locations has irked me for years now. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but more often than it should (which, in my professional opinion, is never).

Take for example Wilderness Ridge in southern Lincoln, Nebraska. This large golf course development was just getting underway when I moved from Lincoln, but I drove by it often enough to wonder, “Where in the world is the ridge?” And, not only that, but where will the wilderness be after it’s done and after the fields around it are bought up and built up in the next 5-10 years? The name won’t mean anything with respect to it’s environment.