regional system of greenways: if you can make it in st. louis, you can make it anywhere

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Regional System of GreenwaysIf You Can Make It in St. Louis, You Can Make It AnywhereNote: The research for this article was supported bythe Macarthur Foundation under their BuildingResilient Regions Project.

Since the 1990s, regions around the country haveturned to greenways as the latest trend in parkdevelopment. Usually developed along streams orabandoned rail lines as linear parks, greenwaysrespond to the rising demand for active outdoorrecreation such as jogging and cross-country skiing.From the proposed Catawba Regional Trail in theCharlotte-Mecklenburg area to Denver’s CherryCreek Greenway to San Antonio’s celebratedRiverwalk, connected greenways are increasinglyseen as the amenity no twenty-first century metro-politan area can do without.

In MetroGreen, a study of greenways in ten U.S. andCanadian cities, planner Donna Erickson concludesthat greenways generate economic, environmental,and social vitality by increasing the connectionsamong people and places. Supporters stress thatgreenways increase land values and developmentopportunities. Since the time of Frederick LawOlmsted, the “proximate principle” has been wellknown: properties located in proximity to parksenjoy higher market values. And the resultingincreased property tax revenues can help pay forpark development and maintenance.

According to the “edge effect,” greenways have adistinct advantage over traditional parks. As linearparks, greenways generate longer edges, or borders,than conventional parks. John Crompton observedthat a one-hundred-acre park composed of a stringof one hundred connected square acres generates5.65 times more edge than a circular one-hundred-acre park. The edge effect has long guided the layoutof golf courses that are incorporated into real estate

developments. (About half of all new golf coursesare part of a real estate development.) The preferredlayout is the “single fairway, returning nines” con-figuration in which no fairway borders another fair-way and each nine loops out and returns to theclubhouse. This maximizes the number of homesdirectly abutting the golf course.

The rise of regional greenways is also a response tochanging recreational patterns. More people areadopting active lifestyles involving hiking, jogging,bicycling, inline skating, and cross-country skiing.The preferences of homebuyers have shifted fromswimming pools and tennis courts to nature trails.According to Crompton, proximity to natural areashas more of a positive effect on land values thanproximity to parks with large athletic facilities andgathering places.

Greenways are even touted as drivers of regionaleconomic development. Increasingly, footloose cor-porations and high-tech workers seek out high-quality-of-life places. The presence of certain amenities may be more important than the factorcosts of production or access to markets. In The Riseof the Creative Class, Richard Florida argues thatcreative workers in high-tech occupations drive eco-nomic development. Working intensely for longhours, creative-class workers crave ready access torecreation to recharge their batteries. “They requireparks or trails close at hand,” writes Florida.

Greenways also benefit the environment. By pre-serving nature along streams, they improve waterquality. Riparian vegetation filters out pollutants,both in the air and in the water. Greenways candampen noise from a highway. By reducing run-off,greenways can reduce flooding and cut costs forstorm water management. By enabling some resi-

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Nat ional Civ ic Review • DOI : 10.1002/ncr.211 • Summer 2008

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dents to walk or bicycle to work, greenways canreduce automobile use. Finally, by enabling peoplefrom different communities to mingle in low-stressenvironments, greenways can increase social capital,especially what Robert Putnam in Bowling Alonecalls “bridging” social capital.

Obstacles to Greenway Development

The substantial economic, social, and environmentalbenefits of regional greenways would seem to makethem an easy sell. Greenways, however, are oftencontroversial. Precisely because they link differentcommunities, residents along the proposed green-way often anticipate an invasion of their communityby outsiders. Homeowners fear a violation of theirprivacy, with strangers peering into their livingrooms. Opponents raise the specter of increasednoise, litter, trespassing, and vandalism. They evenfear increased crime, though studies yield no evi-dence for this.

Opponents of greenways have access to many vetopoints because of fragmented private land owner-ship and public land use controls. If one privatelandowner refuses to sell or allow easements to akey piece of land, the entire greenway system can becompromised. And with eminent domain so contro-versial, few governments are prepared to forciblyseize private property to build a greenway.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to greenway develop-ment is the fragmentation of land use powers amonglocal governments. The average metropolitan area inthe United States has about one hundred general-

purpose governments. Without permission from thelocal municipality, greenway development is impos-sible. Moreover, successful greenways usuallyrequire local governments to be responsible formaintenance. Negotiating maintenance agreementsamong scores of local governments is a dauntingtask, to say the least.

Great Rivers Greenway: The St. Louis Way

The St. Louis metropolitan area is one of the mostchallenging environments for building a regionalsystem of connected greenways. The quintessential“inelastic” city, to use a term coined by David Ruskin Cities Without Suburbs (p. 10), St. Louis City hasnot annexed any land since it withdrew from St.Louis County in 1876. In the second half of thetwentieth century (1950–2000), the population ofSt. Louis fell by more than half a million, fromabout 856,796 to 348,189. With no natural barriersto expansion, such as mountains or large bodies ofwater, St. Louis has become one of the mostsprawled out metropolitan areas in the nation. From1982 to 1997, the region’s population grew by only6 percent; yet urbanized land grew 25 percent, rank-ing St. Louis as having one of the least efficient pat-terns of land development in the nation. St. CharlesCounty, located west of St. Louis City and Countyon the other side of the Missouri River, has been one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation.Because the St. Louis region has thinned out somuch, building a truly regional system of greenwaysrequires spanning huge distances.

St. Louis also has one of the most fragmented sys-tems of local government in the nation, generallyranked right behind Pittsburgh in total number ofgovernments per one hundred thousand people.According to the 2002 Census of Governments, theSt. Louis metropolitan area has 303 general-purposelocal governments. St. Louisans are deeply attachedto their local governments. According to Terry Jones,the region is “fragmented by design.” Homebuilderswork closely with suburban municipalities whosezoning codes often mandate single-family homes on

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Summer 2008

Since the time of Frederick Law Olmsted, the“proximate principle” has been well known:properties located in proximity to parks enjoyhigher market values. And the resultingincreased property tax revenues can help payfor park development and maintenance.

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large lots. Both public and private actors are deeplysuspicious of any regional planners who might takepowers away from local governments.

The impetus for a regional system of greenways inSt. Louis grew out of a Danforth Foundation civicinitiative, St. Louis 2004, commemorating the hun-dredth anniversary of the St. Louis World’s Fair. Oneof the hundreds of ideas generated by the more thanten thousand citizens who participated in theprocess was an initiative to build a regional systemof connected greenways. This would require en-abling legislation in Illinois and Missouri. A short-term nonprofit organization, Greenway Parks andTrails 2004, was established to lead the process.Over a two-year period, Robert J. Hall, the execu-tive director, negotiated with a multitude of munici-pal and county park and recreation professionalsand elected officials to create a revenue sharing planthat would lend some support to existing parks aswell as the funding for the regional parks district.

In November 2000, Proposition C was put on theballot, creating a one-tenth of a cent sales tax in St.Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Charles County,as well as two counties on the Illinois side of theMississippi River. The voters approved the tax, es-tablishing what is now known as the Great RiversGreenway (GRG) District in Missouri and the MetroEast Parks and Recreation District in Illinois. The taxgenerates close to $22 million a year in Missouri, halfof which is distributed to area governments and half of which is spent directly by GRG on greenways.

With its fragmented local governments, suspicion ofregional planning, and powerful suburban home-builders, St. Louis is one of the most inhospitable envi-ronments imaginable for building a regional system ofgreenways. To echo a refrain often said about NewYork City, “If you can make it in St. Louis, you canmake it anywhere.” Surprisingly, GRG has been ableto make substantial progress on a comprehensive planfor regional greenways in a relatively short period oftime—not, however, before hitting a political buzz sawthat temporarily stopped GRG in its tracks.

Watershed Planning FailsOne of the first actions of the new district was tohire David Fisher as executive director. With seven-teen years’ experience as superintendent of theMinneapolis Park and Recreation District, Fisherhad overseen five hundred full-time and fourteenhundred seasonal employees with a $44.9 millionbudget. Since the late nineteenth century, Min-neapolis has had one of the most admired park sys-tems in the country. This includes an interconnectedsystem of greenways, the Chain of Lakes, whichenables residents to traverse the entire city on dedi-cated bicycle and footpaths. Fisher’s experienceoverseeing an $80 million public investment inparks and trails near St. Anthony Falls in downtownMinneapolis that generated more than $1 billion inprivate investments made him an especially attrac-tive candidate to head GRG.

In the first few years of its existence, GRG orches-trated an elaborate process designed to involve asmany citizens, professionals, and stakeholder organi-zations as possible in planning a regional system ofgreenways. Early on, participants decided that theywould orient the plan around the area’s rivers andstreams. The heritage and identity of St. Louis is basedon its unique status as the meeting place of the twolargest rivers in North America, the Mississippi andthe Missouri. Instead of viewing the rivers as obstaclesto transportation that divide the region, as they hadbeen viewed historically, GRG framed the rivers asassets that unite the region through a system of green-ways. The resulting “River Ring” Plan (Figure 1),approximately twelve hundred miles of greenways,parks, and open space circling the region, includesforty-five major, regional, local, and neighborhoodgreenways crisscrossing the metropolitan area.

In an effort to overcome fragmentation, WatershedPlanning Districts were proposed to coordinate proj-ects and activities across jurisdictions. Forty districtswould be spread across the region, having strictlyadvisory powers to organize green space planningefforts and advise local governments on the impactof new development on water quality issues.


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The proposal for Watershed Planning Districts wasmet with immediate and furious opposition fromsuburban homebuilders and elected officials. A repre-sentative of the homebuilders had participated in theplanning process, and Fisher had spoken to a numberof regional councils of the Homebuilders Association.Nevertheless, legislation was soon introduced in theMissouri State Assembly to prevent GRG from regu-lating land development and water quality, and theHome Builders Association of Greater St. Louis pro-duced a twenty-eight-page report outlining theirobjections to the “anti-development” aspects of theRiver Ring plan.

According to Fisher, much of the political firestormwas sparked by the term watershed, which sug-gested a heavy-handed bureaucracy that would reg-

ulate development in order to protect the environ-ment. Indeed, “watershed planning” was con-tentious. Suburban developers and environmentalgroups had long been locked in legal battles overthe impact of development on local rivers andstreams.

Public officials worried about loss of local controlover land use. This concern ran deep and blockedother environmentally friendly initiatives, such asinclusion of the Missouri River in the federalAmerican Heritage River program just a few yearsearlier. Suburban governments suspected that GRGwould distribute the funds to the urban core whilethey would see little in return. They feared thatGRG would someday gain the power of eminentdomain and usurp local land use controls. Prior to


Figure 1. Great Rivers Greenway: River Ring Plan

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GRG, municipalities complained that counties haddone little to support their green space efforts. Ifthey could not trust county governments for sup-port, how could they trust a regional agency?

Fisher never intended the Watershed PlanningDistricts to focus on environmental regulation andlimit development. Indeed, citing his experience inMinneapolis, Fisher argued that greenways wouldincrease land values and stimulate new devel-opment. Blindsided by the fierce opposition of thehomebuilders, however, Fisher immediatelyretreated and deleted the Watershed PlanningDistricts from the River Ring Plan. He substitutedthe innocuous term “greenway planning dis-tricts” and began telling everyone who would lis-ten that GRG was pro development. But he knewthat Missouri was the “Show Me” state, and untilGRG got a significant project in the ground thatdemonstrated the development potential of green-ways, implementing the plan would be difficult ifnot impossible.

Breakthrough at Barat HavenRecognizing that the homebuilders could effectivelyveto his projects, Fisher began cultivating develop-ers, including Paul McKee, chairman of McEagleDevelopment, one of the largest developers andlandowners in St. Charles County. According toFisher, McKee “got it right away.” McKee collabo-rated with GRG on Barat Haven, a 240-acre mixed-use project along the Dardenne Creek in St. CharlesCounty. Modeled on the success of the neighboringWinghaven development, Barat Haven embodiedmany of the principles of new urbanism—mixed-usecommunities where residents can live, learn, work,play, and pray. According to its Website (www.winghaven.net/index2.html), Winghaven “nurturesthe knowledge-based worker that embodies a newcreative class emerging in America.”

Barat Haven includes 248 homes, a private school,eighty-five acres of parkland, a fifteen-acre lake, and3.3 miles of greenway trails. The project alsoincludes restored wetlands and native plants as part

of an effort to preserve the natural features of thedevelopment. As one developer put it, and noted byreporter Nina Kult, “There’s no question that theemphasis of this project is on green space. It’s notevery day that you come to a community witheighty-five acres of parkland and trails.”

Barat Haven is the beginning of a regional connec-tion for the county. The park is the primary greenspace for Dardenne Prairie, the local municipality. Itis also a key point along the Dardenne greenway,which will soon be one of the largest preservedwatersheds in the St. Louis region. Eventually, thegreenway will cross numerous municipalities andconnect to all three counties in the district.

Fisher knew that numerous studies had connectedgreenways to enhanced property values. But Fisherrecommends, “Never use data from somewhereelse.” In the case of Barat Haven the results wereobvious: units next to the greenway commanded apremium price. The success of Barat Haven meltedopposition to greenways in St. Charles County.Developers and suburban officials are now workingwith GRG regularly to develop greenways and parksin the area. One suburban parks official said to St.Louis Post-Dispatch writer T. Bryant, “We’ve got allthese little pieces, and we’re linking them together.It’s really going to give a regional aspect to all ourtrails.” The Missouri Homebuilders even gave anaward to GRG.

As a result of early successes at Barat Haven and inNorth St. Louis County, GRG is increasingly beingviewed by developers as a friend, not an enemy.Today, the demand for greenways exceeds GRG’sresources to build them. As one staff memberremarked to T. Bryant, “There is a lot of coordina-tion. People are starting to talk together. A lot of themunicipalities have caught on to the idea . . . of aconnected system. It’s not just from neighborhood toneighborhood but community to community.” Theyhave been able to move past early controversies andalign wary municipalities, developers, and citizenstoward their regional vision. GRG has carved out a


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niche as a new type of lean regional special districtthat uses resources strategically to market a regionalvision of connected greenways.

A Special Kind of Special District

According to the Census of Governments, the num-ber of special districts in the United States grewspectacularly from 8,299 in 1942 to 35,052 in 2002.Special districts are designed to perform a singlefunction, such as sewers, fire protection, or publictransit. They are designed to take the politics out ofservice provision and often end up insulating keyfunctions in bureaucratic structures that make deci-sions on the basis of technocratic rationality, withlittle chance for citizen input. As Nancy Burns put it,“Special districts function to discourage participa-tion, because . . . the information costs associatedwith learning even the names of the districts thatgovern a location are prohibitive” (p. 116).

GRG is a different kind of special district. Eventhough GRG has a single function, it views its mis-sion as multifunctional: recreation, economic devel-opment, environmental protection, and communitybuilding. For an agency with revenues of about $11million a year, it has a remarkably flat organizationalstructure. As Fisher says, “I have the six best employ-ees in the world.” Members outnumber staff nearlytwo to one. GRG’s lean structure makes it more flex-ible and less vulnerable to attack as a top-downbureaucracy enforcing new layers of regulation.

Fisher views his role inside the organization as moreof a coach than a CEO. “I hire employees who havepeople skills, vision skills, and the ability to learn,”he says. The primary role of GRG staff is not as tech-nical planners but as facilitators who bring peopletogether to generate consensus around a plan, nur-turing a project from conception to ribbon cutting.

Engagement is a key part of the district’s work.Playing an active role in communities has helpedassuage misconceptions about the district. Planners

spend much of their time in the field working withmunicipalities, businesses, civic groups, and arearesidents—often meeting after hours to discuss thedistrict’s work. They help coordinate advisory com-mittees for greenway projects and organize teams ofpublic, private, and civic sector stakeholders. Everygreenway plan uses citizen (CAC) and technical(TAC) advisory committees as well as public forums.Both advisory committees give planners the localknowledge they need to successfully develop proj-ects. CACs are intended to determine the values thateach project should embody and the practicalaspects citizens desire. TACs help coordinate acrossjurisdictions and smooth over issues related to control and ownership. These efforts help educate citizens and officials about GRG’s work, allowadjustment in project design, and prevent develop-ment of project features that lack support.

Along the Dardenne Greenway, for example, plan-ners had initially intended to give the greenway arural feel with horse and water trail elements. Thesedesign features were replaced when planners learnedthat citizens favored a more contemporary green-way that emphasized biking and jogging. Plans forthe water trail were removed when discussions withlocal parks officials and environmentalists revealedthat segments of the creek were difficult to safelynavigate and water activity could harm the localenvironment. This type of engagement and willing-ness to respond to local concerns has increased thelevel of trust between GRG and suburban citizens,developers, and municipalities.

The Challenge of Equity in Regional Governance

GRG is in a situation in which it must collaboratewith public, private, and nonprofit actors. As schol-ars put it, GRG must substitute processes of regionalgovernance in the absence of a strong regional gov-ernment. The amount of money GRG has available,about $11 million a year, is ridiculously small rela-tive to the demands of building a regional greenwaynetwork. Knowing this, GRG spends almost all of


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its money on acquiring land, easements, and build-ing the trail. GRG uses SEED (social, environmental,economic development) projects to help generateactivity along greenway sites and reinvigorate green-way initiatives.

Before any section of the River Ring is completed, alegal maintenance agreement must be signed, usuallywith the local government. If GRG put money intomaintenance, it would soon have no funds left tobuild greenways. These agreements also preventlocal governments from becoming dependent on thedistrict for support. The district works to acquirestate and federal grants and matching funds forprojects. Seventy-seven miles of bicycle lanesplanned for St. Louis City and County were theresult of GRG’s leadership in acquiring a federalfunding source for the project. Additionally, the dis-trict assists local municipalities in their efforts todevelop environmentally friendly projects, such as the Portage de Sioux Nature Area, which feedinto the River Ring system.

In a few short years, GRG has managed to pro-duce more than one thousand acres of green spaceand more than fifty miles of greenway trails. GRGseems to be a good example of what scholars call“regional governance without regional government.”The idea behind regional governance is that public,private, and nonprofit actors can learn to trust oneanother and act collectively to address regionalissues. Collaboration implies that the three sectorsare somehow equal, and if all the stakeholders areconvened around a table progress can be made.Before GRG was established, civic groups pushedmany greenway efforts, such as the Dardenne andRiver Des Peres Greenways, but they made littleprogress. In fact, GRG’s regional vision and itssteady stream of dedicated funding have been crucialto moving the greenway system forward. GRG is notjust a grantmaking authority. GRG has used its fundsin a strategic manner to build relationships withpowerful elites, overcome political opposition, anddevelop key segments of the greenway that demon-

strate its benefits. GRG’s success may be based oncollaboration among public, private, and nonprofitactors, but GRG is “first among equals.”

Good management and quality planning have theirlimits, though. Greenways are often marketed fortheir ability to generate public revenue, but the costsmay be too great for distressed parts of the region.Though a portion of the sales tax that funds GRG isdistributed to local governments, the actual amountis tiny in comparison to the costs of maintainingmiles of greenway trail. Local governments in poorurban and rural areas often lack the resources toenter into the maintenance agreements required byGRG.

The St. Vincent Greenway, for example, runsthrough some of the most impoverished areas in theSt. Louis region. More than 39 percent of the resi-dents of Wellston and 30 percent of the residents of Pagedale live below the federal poverty level. (The poverty rate for St. Louis County as a whole is 6.9 percent.) These municipalities lack a profes-sional parks department and are in a perpetual stateof fiscal stress. Local governments operating at themargins have little room to add a long-term costsuch as maintenance of a greenway.

In some cases, civic organizations have stepped in tofill the need for maintenance. Trailnet, a local citi-zens group, has adopted the maintenance costs for aportion of the St. Vincent Greenway. Even so, localgovernments cannot lean too heavily on the civicsector. Civic groups are strong advocates of green-ways, but capital improvements and maintenancesoon drain their budget. The twelve-mile RiverfrontTrail, for example, fell into disrepair when Trailnetstruggled to deliver the funding to maintain it.

Inequality thus presents a formidable obstacle forregional governance approaches to major amenities,such as that pioneered by GRG. Financiallystrapped local governments find it difficult to com-mit to the long-term costs of greenway maintenance.


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Civic groups struggle to fill the gaps. Without addi-tional resources and imaginative efforts to addressthis problem, the development of greenways willfavor upper-middle-class, usually white suburbs pos-sessing adequate resources to maintain these valu-able new amenities.

Building Regional Greenways: Promises and Pitfalls

The St. Louis example shows that progress can bemade on regional greenways even without a strongregional government possessing land use planningpowers and eminent domain. Lean and mean specialdistricts headed by entrepreneurial leaders can over-come fragmentation and build collaboration. Threelessons stand out from the GRG experience.

First, understanding the local policy environment isessential. The watershed-planning proposal wasdefeated largely because of longstanding attach-ments to local control and mistrust of governmentregulation. Words such as watershed planning acti-vated these concerns. As GRG learned from thisexperience, you cannot assume that the publicunderstands greenways; you have to aggressivelymarket greenways and the regional vision behindthem.

Second, building relationships is critical. Fisherworked to build trusting relationships with power-ful homebuilders and local mayors. The BaratHaven development helped to spur new relation-ships with developers and others in the private sec-tor. Extensive processes of citizen engagementhelped to forestall grassroots opposition.

Finally, public leadership and resources matter.Green space is expensive to preserve and develop. Itis often the first item cut from local budgets. Havingdedicated funding has been paramount to GRG’ssuccess. The public sector is not just another stake-

holder in processes of regional governance. GRGwas the only actor that had a stake in a regionalvision of a connected system of greenways, and itwas able to use its resources strategically to gainaccess to key political actors in the region and over-come initial opposition to greenways.

ReferencesBryant, T. “Cycling Trails on the Rise.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 1, 2006, Metro, p. C1.

Burns, N. The Formation of American Local Governments:Private Values in Public Institutions. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1994.

Crompton, J. L. Parks and Economic Development.Chicago: Planners Press, 2002.

Erickson, D. MetroGreen: Connecting Open Space in NorthAmerican Cities. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006.

Florida, R. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: BasicBooks, 2002.

Jones, E. T. Fragmented by Design: Why St. Louis Has SoMany Governments. St. Louis, Mo.: Palmerston and Reed,2000.

Kult, N. “New Development Part of Green Push.” St. LouisPost-Dispatch, 2006, Apr. 23, News, p. 4.

Putnam, R. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival ofAmerican Community. New York: Simon and Schuster,2000.

Rusk, D. Cities Without Suburbs. Washington, D.C.:Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2002 Census of Governments, Vol. 1,no. 1. Government Organization. Washington, D.C.: U.S.Government Printing Office, 2002.

W. Scott Krummenacher is a doctoral student in theDepartment of Public Policy Studies, St. Louis University.Todd Swanstrom is a professor of public policy at SaintLouis University. Mark Tranel is director of the University ofMissouri-St. Louis Public Policy Research Center andresearch associate professor of public policy administration.


regional system of greenways: if you can make it in st. louis, you can make it anywhere

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