Urban Greenways: A Systematic Review and Typology

Abstract

Greenways are multifunctional linear landscapes that provide a range of socio-ecological benefits. As a domain of landscape planning research, greenways gained traction in the late 20th century and today, there is substantial interest in greenway planning and design. This is especially true in urban areas, as noted at the sixth Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning. Yet, cities encompass biophysical flows, sociopolitical relationships, and formal structures that are distinct from non-urban areas and urban greenways may reflect an evolving type of landscape planning and design that is related to but distinct from greenways writ large. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no previous review of scholarship on greenways in an urban context. We address the aforementioned gaps by reporting on a systematic assessment of peer-reviewed literature. The review encompasses 52 refereed articles using the term “urban greenway” or “urban greenways” in the title, abstract, or keywords drawn from three prominent academic databases. Our analysis covers seven research categories, and this undergirds a typology and definition of urban greenways. In so doing, we seek to illuminate typical traits of urban greenways to inform future landscape planning scholarship and practice.

6th Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning

“…There are five research papers and one review paper that address this theme. Olivia Horte and Theodore Eisenman' s review paper [2] is a systematic literature review and typology of urban greenway scholarly papers. They reviewed some 52 referred articles to identify gaps in greenway scholarship as well as develop a typology for urban greenway research.…”

Street Trees for Bicyclists, Pedestrians, and Vehicle Drivers: A Systematic Multimodal Review

“…The methodology of this literature review draws upon precedents in urban forestry and landscape scholarship [39][40][41][42], as well as guidance for conducting systematic reviews [43,44]. We identified the literature to be reviewed in this study by searching keyword terms in 13 electronic databases between 18 April 2020, and 5 May 2020.…”

Greenways as Integrated Systems: A Proposal for Planning and Design Guidelines Based on Case Studies Evaluation

“…However, the definition and practical applications of the greenway concept have changed over time. So much so that many authors have tried to amend he concept by highlighting its main principles and specific characteristics [6][7][8][9][10], which also assists in defining guidelines for their design and implementation [11,12]. In this context, this paper, in accordance with these theoretical studies, focuses on the need to determine a series of meta-planning and design indications that are able to intervene on territory with infrastructure, conceived not only as an axis for the development of soft mobility, but also as a supporting element for a new concept of development and use of territory, attentive to a territory's peculiarities and to the needs of the resident populations.…”