Greenway Paradox: Demographic Shift Along the Somerville Community Path
Bachelor’s Thesis, Tufts University | 2017
Greenways are an increasingly common urban development tool for cities as economic drivers and active transit facilitators. These corridors have various benefits as they add an ecological, social, and economic asset to a community. However, the addition of greenways has also been proven to alter other demographic factors including increasing adjacent rental rates and changing neighborhood racial and income composition to be whiter and wealthier. These trends contribute to a more socially and economically inequitable urban landscape in American cities. This senior honors thesis contextualizes the Somerville Community Path within the broader existing literature of greenways and analyzes the effect of the quarter-mile extension project on various factors. Cities must take into serious consideration both the positive and negative externalities of large-scale projects such as greenways as to ensure that the benefits these public investment projects provide are accessible to all. [Read more]