I have a message for my city: no more cutesy abbreviations for all of the new neighborhoods popping up around town.

Listen, this isn’t New York. They can give their city’s cool, hip areas nicknames like SoHo and TriBeCa, because, well, they’re cool and hip. But I don’t live in NYC. I live quite far from it, actually.

My city has been undergoing a construction boom in the last few years and now the people who live in these new downtown enclaves think it’s the bees knees to give their locales clever names. For example, visiting friends who live north of Lovejoy? Welcome to NoLo! Buying a condo on the south waterfront? SoWa’s your home now! Heading out to eat in North Portland? See you in NoPo!

As Barack Obama would say, “Enough!” I’m not just against these silly names because they’re annoying, but they imply a hipness factor that simply doesn’t exist. It’s fine for SoHo, because there actually is cool stuff south of Houston. Works for TriBeCa because the triangle below Canal street really does have interesting things to offer. But let me tell you, the south waterfront here is little more than half empty highrises, and North Portland has been “up and coming” for ten years.

So, please Portland, no more neighborhood nicknames. At least until SoWa is no longer “So Wha?”