Skip to Main Content
U.S. Forest Service
Caring for the land and serving people

United States Department of Agriculture

Home > Search > Publication Information

  1. Residents and urban greenways:  Modeling support for the Atlanta BeltLine

    Share via EmailShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare on Twitter
    Dislike this pubLike this pub
    Author(s): Nathan P. Palardy; B. Bynum Boley; Cassandra Johnson Gaither
    Date: 2018
    Source: Landscape and Urban Planning
    Publication Series: Scientific Journal (JRNL)
    Station: Southern Research Station
    PDF: Download Publication  (892.0 KB)

    Description

    Urban greenways have received significant attention due to their many publicized benefits and costs that make them contentious recreational developments. Most prior studies have approached urban greenways from a demand-side perspective solely focused on their users. This study adds to the literature by taking a supply-side approach to assessing resident attitudes towards greenways and using these attitudes to predict support for greenways. Building off of Weber’s theory of formal and substantive rationality and social exchange theory, resident support for the Atlanta BeltLine is posited to be a function of different extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsically, it is hypothesized support for the BeltLine is a function of residents’ frequency of use and their perceptions of how the greenway trail generates economic benefits within their neighborhood. Intrinsically, it is hypothesized resident support for the BeltLine is a function of how the BeltLine psychologically, socially, and politically empowers or disempowers residents. To test these hypotheses, surveys were distributed across three neighborhoods adjacent to portions of the Atlanta BeltLine using door-to-door systematic census-guided random sampling. The 568 usable surveys (60% response rate) were entered into SPSS’ AMOS and used to assess both the construct validity and predictive validity of the measures. The model explained 62% of the variance in support for the Atlanta BeltLine with four of the five antecedents being significant. Implications suggest that support for greenways is more than just a function of frequency of use, but a complicated mix of use and perceptions of the trail’s economic benefits and empowerment.

    Publication Notes

    • You may send email to pubrequest@fs.fed.us to request a hard copy of this publication.
    • (Please specify exactly which publication you are requesting and your mailing address.)
    • We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
    • This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.

    Citation

    Palardy, Nathan P.; Boley, B. Bynum ; Gaither, Cassandra Johnson. 2018. Residents and urban greenways:  Modeling support for the Atlanta BeltLine. Landscape and Urban Planning 169:250-259. 10 p.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.09.006

    Keywords

    Urban greenways, Resident attitudes, Empowerment, Structural equation modeling, Rail-to-trails, Atlanta BeltLine.

    Related Search

    XML: View XML
Show More
Show Fewer
Jump to Top of Page
https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/56000