Introduction

Greenways receive wide attention as landscape connectors for conservation, recreation, transportation, and neighbourhood enhancement. Hundreds of greenway projects are either complete or in progress in cities across North America; nearly all of the largest cities are planning for interconnected greenway networks (Grove 1990). Greenways are linear open spaces along natural or human-made features such as rivers, ridgelines, railroads, canals or roads. They are planned, designed and managed to connect and protect ecological, scenic, recreational and cultural resources. A greenway may include trails or it may be a conservation corridor without recreational access. Greenways have a number of other names (Ahern 1995; Cook and Van Lier 1994), each implying a slightly different focus, such as extensive open space systems, ecological networks, ecological infrastructure, wildlife corridors, or habitat networks.

Consider this scenario: a greenway network plan has been created for a metropolitan region. A number of entities have been involved in the effort, including the general public, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organisations. Given this, the greenways project still needs a structure in which to work – an organising method or institutional arrangement for implementation. Therefore, one main question frames this study: how have greenway projects been implemented in North American cities? This research focuses on interconnected greenway networks, rather than on individual corridors. (The term ‘network’ is used here to mean a meshed fabric of nodes and connecting corridors.)

‘We frequently perceive crises of governance where nothing seems to get done.’