1. Introduction
The greenway movement has been recognized worldwide since its inception in the 1990s. The Greenway, which can be considered as “a linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, or ridgeline, or overland along railroad right-of-way converted to recreational use, a canal, a scenic road, or other route” [
1], has unique advantages as open space when the land becomes less and less in city areas. It is a part of urban infrastructure and forms connected networks that support both ecological and social activities and process [
2]. Although the urban greenways have developed into various forms according to different physical environments, its essence is to connect the residential area and neighborhoods with open space through a network-like linear landscape corridor [
3,
4,
5], so that the leisure space is expanded in urban areas. In summary, urban greenways can not only adapt to the situation to the shortage of urban construction land, but also meet the increasing demand of outdoor leisure, adapting to the expansion of urbanization [
6]. However, as the city areas become more and more densified, there has been a lack of space for new urban green space [
7,
8], including greenways. Issues have arisen, for example, many greenways cannot match the needs of the users [
9]. On one hand, some greenways in built areas are based on the sidewalks and are too narrow to support the outdoor exercises [
10]. On the other hand, to improve the ecological value of greenways, many of them are built outside the city [
11], increasing the distance between city users and green spaces. The development of the society has led to even higher demands for open spaces [
12]. Thus for urban greenways, a big challenge is that how to better serve residents instead of being a waste public sources.
Urban greenways usually have multi-functions [
13], such as ecological services, recreation, commuting, and economic development [
5]. To meet the challenge, the first step is to get a deep understanding of the greenway functions. One of the most important functions of urban greenways is to improve biodiversity [
5]. More native species would inhabit greenways especially the urban stream corridors when the environment is renovated [
14]. For recreational use, urban greenways are built to serve the urban residents by improving the natural and physical environment [
15], helping people to get more outdoor activities such as physical exercise, recreation and enjoying the scenery [
16,
17,
18,
19], thus improving their physical and mental health [
17]. A study indicates that people who use the greenways to exercise are more likely to meet national health standards [
20]. The health benefits of greenways are impacted by the distance between greenways and residential areas, which especially increase first and then decrease in a certain distance [
21]. The social benefit is also one of the important influences of greenways. On one hand, residents seek to improve community relationships in greenways [
22] as the greenways near residential areas attract people to go outdoors, which can increase the frequency of neighbors’ meeting [
22,
23]. Meanwhile, the greenways can be used as a place for community residents and their families to have fun and communicate. Through participating in these collective activities, the neighborhood interaction and community cohesion would be enhanced [
15,
23,
24]. On the other hand, greenways help to improve social equity by serving users of a diverse sociodemographic background, especially in developing countries [
9]. Urban greenways also bear important traffic functions. Many urban greenways are the essential roads for people to go to work and do shopping, which also connect communities, parks and important urban service facilities. In this way, people can reach their destinations such as shops, restaurants and transportation stations through greenways in a short time, which will improve people’s travel efficiency [
25,
26,
27]. In addition to the above functions, other functions of urban greenways have been further expanded recently. Some urban greenways can be used as places for urban commercial activities, allowing small vendors to enter the greenway space through time-sharing. This phenomenon is especially concentrated in the greenways close to residents or within the residential areas [
28]. What’s more, urban greenways also have certain impacts on the economy of residential areas. For example, urban greenways can improve the property value of nearby owners [
23]. Of all the above functions, recreation is the one that the users care about the most, and satisfaction for greenways would decline if the economy function is too strong [
22].
In previous studies, scholars often regarded urban greenways as a whole, while the functions of a certain greenway may be affected by its location. Greenways can show different characteristics according to different environments [
5]. For example, the waterfront greenway owns better natural environment, while the greenway next to the city road has more convenient transportation. The biodiversity and recreation functions of different urban greenways will affect people’s usage modes [
14], which in turn affect the main functions of greenways. Among all the influencing factors, accessibility and the distance between greenways and residential areas are the most important ones [
29,
30]. This is because whether the greenway is easy to reach or leave directly affects the frequency of people visiting the greenway [
5,
31]. Greenways close to residential areas are accessed more frequently by nearby residents [
15,
29], and can perform various functions [
23]. Through literature research, the characteristics of such greenways can be summarized: they are next to urban communities or go through residential areas, and mainly serve nearby communities [
13,
15,
29,
32], so they can be defined as “community greenways”. There have been plenty cases of community greenways, such as Hudson River waterfront Greenway in New York and Kameido Ryokudo Park in Japan (
Figure 1). In Nanshan District of Shenzhen, China, the community greenway density reaches 1.08 km/km
2 [
33] because there is requirement for constructing greenways near residential area in Pearl River Delta. Though community greenways have been common in many places, there is not yet an academic consensus on community greenways.
In the authors’ opinion, the community greenway can be regarded as branch “urban greenways” or “local trails” by the classification of greenways in the previous literature. Urban greenways include higher levels of development and have high levels of access to densely populated areas [
5] and local trails were trails where more than 50% of the respondents are from a distance of 5 miles or less [
29]. Community greenways can be subdivided from the above two categories because community greenways are even closer to residential areas and serve a smaller area. This could lead to different characteristics in the daily interactions between residents and community greenways. Some studies have focused on community greenways. For example, Akpinar studied the use patterns and factors influencing the use of Kosuyolu Urban Greenway (KUG) in Turkey, which is located within 1000 m for 30,000 inhabitants [
13] and Wang did research on the construction of Furong greenway in Shenzhen, which is beside seven communities [
34]. Community greenways have the main functions of urban greenways: providing leisure space and alternative transportation paths and connecting communities with nearby parks and service facilities. The main characteristics of community greenways is the location, which is close to or deep inside communities and extends to people’s everyday living space. The interaction between residents and community greenways may not only affect aspects of recreation and exercise, but also in daily transportation, communication and even in the everyday activities in front of the house. A previous study has shown that greenways can improve the quality of lives [
15]. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of research that focus on the activities happening in community greenways and the integrated benefits of such space. So, the question is: how do community greenways serve for the everyday activities of residents as an overall resource instead of just a recreational resource? Scholars have regarded greenways in communities as leisure space, while overlooked the multi-functions of greenways as an integrated resource to the community [
5]. This leads to the isolation of greenways from the everyday lives of the residents, thus ignoring the potential benefits of the greenways.
This study takes community greenways as a specific type of urban greenways and analyzes how community greenways serve the residents from the perspective of everyday life in public space. This life is continuous in time and also public in space [
35]. Applying ideas in “life between buildings”, the activities in communities can be divided into necessary activities, optional activities and social activities [
36], including all public activities in open space. Recreation is only a part of the optional activities. As the public space “beside the house”, community greenways shorten the distance between public space and residents’ life. From the perspective of everyday life, a vibrant public space can performs the pre-designed function, but also allows residents to creatively expand the functions of the space [
37]. The public space should be related to the lives of the residents. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship of community greenways and residents’ daily life. The three specific questions include: (1) How do residents use community greenways in their daily life? (2) How do residents evaluate community greenways in everyday activities? (3) What are the key elements that residents consider in the construction of community greenways? From the above three aspects, the authors study on the questions how community greenways serve for residents’ daily life and seek to build a better community environment.
3. Result
3.1. Site Observation
The ped and bike system is a path shared by non-motor vehicles and pedestrian, about 1.5–7 m wide (
Figure 4a). There were about 20 cyclists passing in 10 min during the peak time in the afternoon, including 8 deliverymen passing with fast speed. No extra space for recreation is left for pedestrians in the narrow section where there was only 2 m width. There is no clear bicycle parking area along the greenway. Two roads cross the survey section. There are a few stone seats along the river. These seats are lack maintenance (
Figure 4b). During the peak period, the seats can be used by a percentage of 100%. The greening system can be divided into two parts. The most important vegetation is the original trees kept on the banks of the river, which are lush (
Figure 4c). In addition, some of the surrounding community walls are separated from the greenway by 1–2 m wide vegetation. There are very few streetlights. Neither physical exercise facility nor public toilet was found.
Through observation, it was found that the common activities carried out by residents were in accordance with ‘life between buildings’, which can be summarized as (1) necessary activities: commuting, walking dogs; (2) optional activities: Relaxing, reading, enjoying scenery, fishing, physical exercise and shopping at the vendors along the greenway; (3) Social activities: interacting with neighbors and family members (
Figure 5).
Although the space of the community greenway is limited, it can be summarized into several different types (
Figure 6). The first type is the greenway space adjacent to the outer wall of the community. The greenway is 2 m wide. There is no extra space. Most people just passed by or took a walk. A few people would do physical exercise or fishing along the river. Some people chatted with neighbors by the river. The second type is the greenway crossing a small square, with a width of 7 m. People tended to do social activities here, such as being with children and chatting with neighbors. It is also a good place to sit alone, read books, or enjoy the scenery. The third type is the green space close to the open residential buildings, that is, the entrance and exit of the residential building directly facing the greenway. The greenway is 5 m wide. Most people would not stay here and they just passed by, and some sat on the bench by the river to chat with the neighbors. The fourth type is the greenway with a small garden. The vegetation in the greenway and in the garden is relatively closed, so the space is quiet. Residents liked to sit with family members or let the children play here. The fifth type is the greenway combined with the parking lot. The greenway is 1.5 m wide. However, some parking space is used as recreational space. Most people took physical exercise and walked the dog here.
In addition to the above activities, there were also some self-organized activities along the community greenway (
Figure 7), such as small vendors in the corner, clothes drying on the fence, old furniture shared by neighbors, etc. These self-organized activities showed that the community greenway, in addition to being a public space, is also a space that residents like to share private life. It is because of these creative activities that blur the boundaries between space and private life and make the space more livable.
3.2. The Daily Use of the Community Greenway
A total of 103 questionnaires were distributed in this round, resulting a 96% valid response rate (depending on the completion of all the questions and whether the respondents were nearby residents). We try to avoid the non-response bias through random sampling during the survey.
3.2.1. Demographics
From
Table 1, the male to female residents participating in the survey was close to 1:1, which reflected to some extent that there was no significant difference in gender among the community greenway users. We observed that users of the greenway were diverse in age distribution. It should be noted that the proportion of people aged 56 and over was relatively large, accounting for 45.4%. In China, the legal retirement age for most people is between 50 and 60 years old [
43,
44], therefore, it can be initially determined that such people represented the retirement group. For the job status, the proportion of students was smallest (4%), and there were no significant differences of other groups. In the education level, the number of users with junior high school, high school, secondary technical school and vocational education level was 48.5%, and that of junior college and undergraduate students was 31.1%. The income level of most greenway users was 2001~10000 RMB (70.7%). According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ interpretation of 2018, this interval can be understood as a medium level. From the statistics of residential streets, the vast majority of participants (91.8%) come from areas that are no more than 0.5 mile away from the community greenway, further indicating that the users of the community greenways are mainly surrounding residents.
3.2.2. Use Patterns
From
Table 2, walking was the most common way to come to the community greenway for everyday activities (84.9%). It was observed that quite a few people ride bicycles, but these people usually would not stay. Overall, 74.7% of the users lived within a 10-min walk, and 11.2% of the users lived in communities more than 20 min’ walk from the greenway. 59.6% of users reported that they came to the community greenway at least once a day for leisure or other activities. About one-fifth of the users would not stay in the community greenway, and 78.8% of the users stayed in the community greenway for a period of time. In terms of user activities, 40.4% of users used community greenways for necessary activities, mainly as a traffic road. At the same time, most users (91%) used community greenways for optional activities such as leisure activities (36.4%) and physical exercise (54.6%), and some residents (8.1%) chose to shop at small vendors in the community greenway. In addition, in social activities, users interacted with family and neighborhoods.
Multivariate regression analysis was used to study the relationship between gender, age, job status, education level, monthly income, transportation, time to reach the greenway, duration of use and the frequency of use (
Table 3). According to the judgment basis of
p < 0.05, the findings indicate a significant relationship between the frequency of use and age (β = −0.383, 95% CI is −0.399–0.092,
p = 0.002), transportation (β= −0.207, 95% CI is −0.675–0.005,
p = 0.047) and the time to reach the greenway (β = 0.411, 95% CI 0.205–0.538,
p = 0.000). The regression results showed a negative correlation between age and frequency of use, that the older the person, the less frequently they used the community greenway. There was a negative correlation between transportation and frequency of use. Somehow there was a positive correlation between time to reach and the frequency of use. No significant correlation was found between the above factors and the duration of use (
p = 0.68 > 0.05).
3.2.3. Activity Preferences of Different Groups of People
From the results of the cross-analysis (
Table 4), we can see the diversity of activities of different groups of people in the community greenway. In terms of gender, the proportion of males who exercised in community greenways (60%) was relatively high, while the proportion of women interacting with family, neighbors and friends (14.29%) was significantly higher than that of males (4%). From the perspective of age, young people tended to use the greenway for daily traffic (62.5%) while seldom for other activities (25%). A larger proportion of middle-aged and elderly people used the community greenway for optional and social activities. The elderly who were over 66 years old in the community greenway tended to do more optional (52% leisure activities, 68% physical exercise) and social activities (12% interaction with family and neighbors). While only 24% of elderly people took the greenway as traffic paths. The activities taken by residents in different job status verified the analysis of the age groups. The students mainly used the community greenway as daily passages, and the employers used it mainly for both necessary and optional activities. Retired people mainly carried out optional activities, while those who were unemployed had the highest proportion of social activities (20%). The housewives in this group accounted for a high proportion, and the main activity was to care for kids. From the influence of education level on activity, the choice of social activities (20%) mainly came from the primary school and below, mainly unemployed female and elderly people, corresponding to the above analysis of job status. For the influence of income, the users of the community greenway are mainly medium-level (2000~10000 RMB), among which the higher proportion of people in the income level of 5001~10000 RMB (59.26%) chose sports activities, and also this group had the highest proportion to shop at the vendors along the greenway (18.52%).
3.3. The Evaluation of the Community Greenway
The residents’ evaluation of the community greenway included three parts, which were the residents’ evaluation of the current status of different factors of the community greenway, the impact level of the community greenway on the residents’ daily life and the importance level of the community greenway construction factors. The total reliability of the questionnaire was 0.797, which was relatively high.
The Evaluation of the Current Community Greenway and Its Impact on the Residents’ Everyday Life
From
Table 5, we can see accessibility scored the highest (4.19) in the status quo evaluation, and most people expressed satisfaction with the accessibility of the greenway (88%). The most dissatisfying factors was service facilities (2.97), and 76% of residents chose ‘generally’ or ‘dissatisfied’. “There are no benches to sit and no shelter for rain. You know, the elderly need benches” “I think there is a need for public toilets here, otherwise it is very inconvenient to come here for exercise.” “The lights are too dark at night, I can’t see the rubbish on the road, and I would not take my kids here.” Residents were relatively satisfied with other aspects. The results were 3.83 for the connection with the urban living facilities, 3.58 for the traffic environment, 3.33 for the type and amounts of the activity space. The overall satisfaction was 3.65, and 55% of residents expressed ‘satisfied’ with the community greenway. From the evaluation of various factors and the overall satisfaction of community greenways (
Table 6), there is a positive correlation between the type and quantity of activity space and overall satisfaction (β = 0.443, 95% C.I. = −0.222–0.631,
p = 0.000).
The results of
Table 5 indicate that the community greenway has significantly improved transportation (3.78) and leisure activities (3.66), and the results show that the community greenway increases the chance of interacting with neighbors (3.26) and family (3.31). The business activities in the greenway were a minority, but they also improved the lives of community residents to a certain extent (2.92). Through multiple regression analysis (
Table 7), the construction status of some aspects of the greenway were related to the improvement of the daily life. When the greenway was connected to the surrounding market, shopping malls or parks, the greenway had more obvious improvement for daily transportation (β = 0.504, 95% C.I. = 0.411–0.862). Service facilities were associated with more neighborhood interactions (β = 0.332, 95% CI = −0.096–0.631) and family interactions (β = 0.391, 95% CI = 0.186–0.761), while the community greenway traffic environment had a negative correlation with family interactions (β = −0.257, 95% CI = −0.654–0.073).
3.4. The Scoring of Importance Level of the Community Greenway Construction Factors
In the evaluation of the importance of different factors relating to everyday activities in the construction of the community greenway (
Table 8), sufficient service facilities scored the highest (4.11), and 81.66% of the residents considered this aspect ‘very important’ and ‘important’. Accessibility (3.58), separation of walking trails and bicycle trails (3.66), diverse activity spaces (3.60), and the connection of urban living facilities (3.78) were not much different. Residents generally believe that these construction factors all had an important position in the construction of community greenways.
In addition to scoring by scales, residents also expressed some opinions on the community greenway and the construction suggestions, including the deep discussion of the issues involved in the questionnaire, as well as the content not covered by the questionnaire.
The natural environment was an issue of concern:
“The river needs to be cleaned up, because sometimes it smells bad, and it attracts a lot of mosquitoes.”
(A retired old man, 60 years, about 5 min from home to the community greenway)
“The greening is very lush, but it takes up too much space. I think some vegetation can be reduced so that there would be more space for activities.”
(A staff, 48 years, about 5 min from home to the community greenway)
Although the current space for activities is limited, residents understood this condition. At the same time, they tried to expand the space through innovative use and time-sharing of the community greenway:
“I would exercise in the parking lot before 6:00 in the morning. The space is relatively spacious and there is no vehicle interference at that time”
(A retired old man, 81 years, only 3 min from home to the community greenway)
For the daily activity environment of the greenway, residents generally believe that the greenway needs a safe and comfortable environment. Many residents complained about the current situation:
“The flatbed trucks that transport goods back and forth are too noisy and threaten the safety of passers-by.”
(Housewife, 53 years, 8 min from home to the community greenway)
5. Conclusions
Community greenways, which is next to or pass through high-density residential areas, is one kind of greenways that is most closely related to people’s life. This study attempts to identify the use of community greenways. The activities in community greenways include commuting, walking the dog, shopping, exercise, fishing, enjoying sceneries, reading, relaxing, interacting with neighbors or family members, which can be divided into necessary activities, optional activities and social activities. From the results, necessary activities and optional activities are the main activities, and are also the most obvious improvements that the community greenway brings to residents’ life. Community greenways have two main characteristics: everydayness and public nature. The everydayness is due to its convenience to the nearby communities and high frequency of use. The public nature means that community greenways are inclusive for different users and activities. The results show that, demographically, there is not much difference in the proportion of various groups of users. Community greenways contribute to social equity especially in developing counties as residents can equally enjoy the open space. The users are relatively satisfied with the community greenway as a space for daily transportation, recreation, social interaction and so on, while some lacks also arise from the evaluation from the users. The main lack is service facilities. The results imply that it is a reason that constrains social connections. Therefore, to give full play to the advantages of the community greenway, urban planners and landscape designers should give more attention to the above aspects. If these problems can be effectively communicated and resolved, community greenways will better serve the life of residents.