OOn a gray, blustery November afternoon in Detroit, John Kish watched intently as his four-year-old grandson, named John, played on a toy slide. If it's a sunny day, there might be a line to use it, but given the weather, they have it to themselves.
“It's a long climb, but it gives them something to do,” Kish said, laughing, as the teenager carefully crossed the bridge inside the building.
The playground sits at the West Warren Avenue stop on the Joe Louis Greenway, a network of bike paths, walking paths, playgrounds, and activity centers designed to connect 23 Detroit neighborhoods. When its 27.5-mile length is completed, it will also pass through Dearborn, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, Mich. and ends at the Detroit Riverfront.
Under construction from 2021, this greenway, named after the champion boxer, is part of a growing urban trend. From Atlanta and Boston to Dallas and Long Island, cities are reclaiming industrial or abandoned land and turning it into resorts.
The most famous is the High Line in New York City. Built on an abandoned railway line, it was opened in four phases from 2009 to 2019. It has become a major tourist attraction, with an estimated 8 million visitors a year, about one-third of whom are city residents.
Along with pedestrians, cyclists, diners and concert-goers, the High Line has spawned gardens and spurred economic development along its 1.45-mile route, with residential buildings overlooking the trail and the Hudson River.
That bucolic scene doesn't have to happen in Detroit, but city officials hope it can.
“This is our starting point,” said Crystal Perkins, director of the City of Detroit General Services, pointing to the area near West Warren Avenue. He expects the greenway will result in “health benefits, connectivity, and the ability to travel safely and easily throughout the city.”
The Joe Louis greenway is being built in phases, at an estimated cost of $240 million over the next five to ten years. It's a huge job, involving the demolition of nearly thirty abandoned homes, the removal of several collapsed commercial buildings and 23,000 tires. An estimated 40,000 residents will live within five minutes of the project.
Detroit recently received $20.7 million in federal funds to link the project to the Iron Belle Trail, a 2,000-mile walking and biking trail that runs from the western end of Michigan's upper peninsula south to the Motor City. But Perkins says more public and private partners are needed to make the greenway a success. He says: “It cannot be just one organization.
In New Orleans, the Lafitte Greenway is about to celebrate its 10th anniversaryth a reminder. Built for an estimated $7.8 million profit on an abandoned rail tunnel, the 2.6-mile project stretches from the French Quarter to City Park, passing through historic neighborhoods such as Treme, Mid-City and Lafitte, which gave it its name.
Organizers say it's used by about 1,000 people a day, and up to 4,000 during big festivals like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. The project has its roots in the neighborhood's reclamation campaign after Hurricane Katrina. “It's a genuine corridor for people to get to work” on foot, bike, skateboard or motorcycle, said Jason Neville, the greenway's executive director.
An estimated 500,000 people a year visit the greenway section, which hosts regular exercise classes called Get Fit the Greenway. There are music concerts, tree planting rallies and the weekly Crescent City Farmer's Market.
Proximity to the greenway was the deciding factor for Jeff Hinson and Breanna Kostyk, when they opened Flour Moon Bagels two years ago. They were regular customers of the Hey! Coffee, which was the first store to open on the greenway in 2018.
Flour Moon's patio faces directly onto the greenway, and diners can look out the shop's windows to see cyclists and pedestrians passing by. “We feel like the greenway is the front porch of a bagel shop. “Since day one, we've had so many visitors stop by, ride bikes or walk,” said Hinson.
While other areas of New Orleans are better known, the greenway serves as a way to entice visitors to explore outside of the traditional tourist spots, he said.
Still, cities need to take more steps to make greenways more accessible, said Anne Lusk, a professor at Boston University who has studied greenways for decades.
Many lack adequate facilities such as bathrooms, benches and playgrounds, like the one built in Detroit, which would make them more useful for residents and visitors, especially the elderly.
Lusk says he'd also like to see cities build protected bike lanes on their streets that lead to greenways, making them seamless transportation systems.
He says: “The green road will then serve as a central highway for people who use bicycles to go to work, to the grocery store, to the drug store, or to take their children to school,” he says.
Another concern, Lusk says, is the impact of climate change on projects. Lusk would like to see tree-lined greenways, which are rare in the industrial corridors where the projects take place.
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