# Generalizations of planar graphs that include hypercubes with large side length in $R^d$

A lot of people have asked about generalizations of planar graphs on other forums. Some topics include:

Many have talked about minor-closed family generalizations of planar graphs, but they cannot possibly include even 3D n by n by n grids. If they did, then n by n by n grids would have to have balanced separators of size $n^{3/2}$, but in reality all of their balanced separators have size at least $n^2$. Qiaochu's definition focuses more on the direction that I am interested in. Ideally, I would like to look at graphs that are 1-skeleta of $(k-1)$-dimensional cell complexes that can be embedded in $\mathbb{R}^k$ injectively (which may be the same thing that Qiaochu is looking for). These are not minor closed for $k\ge 3$, but might be face-contraction closed.

Have these graphs been studied algorithmically? For example, can one generalize the planar separator theorem to these graphs? Or is there something particularly nasty about this definition that I am overlooking that prevents these objects from being algorithmically interesting?