*2.1. Site Selection*

The following principles were referenced when selecting the study site: (1) The community greenways should be part of the urban greenway networks instead of isolated trails; (2) the community greenways should be constructed in recent years to ensure that the greenways are in normal use; (3) the surrounding communities and residential groups should be diverse, ensuring that users cover a wide range of people.

Based on the above three principles, the authors conducted a pre-study on a number of community greenways in Guangzhou, China. In the end, a community greenway along Ma River, Haizhu District, Guangzhou was selected as the research site. Haizhu District is the downtown of Guangzhou, located in the south of the Pearl River. Since 2010, Haizhu District has built a relatively complete greenway network with 170 km long [38] and is a representative area of Guangzhou Greenway. From the overlay of the Greenway Network and the residential area map, the community greenway in Haizhu district is about 34.5 km long. The density of community greenway is 0.38 km/km2. As most of the community greenways are located in the west of Haizhu District, the density in the west is 0.82 km/km2.

The community greenway was selected due to its connection with the Guangzhou Urban Greenway Network, its relatively recent construction (the last construction was in 2017), and its location in dense communities (Figure 2). As Figure 3 illustrates, the selected area is between two urban avenue, about 1.5 miles with a width of 1.5–5 m. Located along Ma River, the Pearl River tributary, the original vegetation is preserved well and the natural environment is in good condition. On the south bank, the residential areas are mainly crowded communities which were built on the basis of old villages, namely 'urban village' in China. There are five entrances for the communities. On the north bank, the communities are mainly newly built ones. The greenway is separated from the communities by walls and there are six entrances along the greenway. A parking lot was built on the north bank, serving the nearby community and with a free classical garden, the functions of the community greenway is enriched. Besides there is diverse land use around the community greenway. The greenway connects city parks, shopping malls, transportation sites and other service facilities. The community greenway was selected mainly for the reason that the nearby areas are densely populated, about 19,300 people per square mile, which makes the greenway one of the liveliest linear open space areas in the high density urban center.

**Figure 2.** The greenway network of Haizhu District, Guanghzou (Source: the author's self-drawing).

**Figure 3.** Maps of the Changgang Community Greenway, part of the Greenway in Haizhu District, Guangzhou (Source: the author's self-drawing).
