Greenways: multiplying and diversifying in the 21st century

Building on the legacy of historic greenway planning in the U.S., several new initiatives have been taking shape and gaining recognition in the past decade. One is ‘Green Infrastructure’ planning which is a ‘must have’ inter-connected system of green spaces. Another is ‘Smart Conservation’—the counterpoint of another planning initiative that preceded it known as ‘Smart Growth’. This is the establishment of critical green corridors that should be preserved and maintained for predominantly ecological functions, in advance of or in conjunction with new development. ‘New Urbanism’ has focused on bringing order and coherence to escalating ‘Edge Cities’ on the urban fringe, based on walkable, mixed-use towns, villages and neighborhoods with integrated open-space systems. Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) are transportation plans for accommodating regional growth around clustered ‘pedestrian pockets’ linked by transit systems. Both New Urbanism and TODs have applied similar principles to ‘brown sites’ and declining city neighborhoods. All these initiatives are different aspects of the greenway movement, expressing its many possibilities, enriching its original concepts, enlarging its credibility—if need be—and emphasizing its importance for and relevance to current issues of sustainability and ‘green’ planning and design. The author, a teacher/practitioner, discusses recent U.S. greenway examples at site, metropolitan and regional scales for which he has been the principal planner/designer or a consultant, and compares New Urbanism and TOD methodologies and approaches to established greenway-planning practices and the premises of Smart Conservation.