Greenways as a planning strategy

Greenways is a generic term that has been applied to a wide range of landscape planning strategies, concepts, and plans. While there is some consensus emerging on the benefits of protecting networks of land, there is little agreement on terminology. As a result, communication and knowledge exchange are limited. This paper offers an inclusive definition of greenways, discusses greenway characteristics, benefits and liabilities, and presents a typology for greenway classification based on scale, goals, landscape context, and planning strategy. This typology is applied to three case studies from the Netherlands and the USA which have been selected to represent a range of greenway types, to articulate similarities, differences, and to explore the transferability of knowledge and concepts. Through this discussion, greenways are considered as a useful strategy for planning, design and management of sustainable landscapes.