**1. Introduction**

The greenway movement has been recognized worldwide since its inception in the 1990s. The Greenway, which can be considered as "a linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, or ridgeline, or overland along railroad right-of-way converted to recreational use, a canal, a scenic road, or other route" [1], has unique advantages as open space when the land becomes less and less in city areas. It is a part of urban infrastructure and forms connected networks that support both ecological and social activities and process [2]. Although the urban greenways have developed into various forms according to different physical environments, its essence is to connect the residential area and neighborhoods with open space through a network-like linear landscape corridor [3–5], so that the leisure space is expanded in urban areas. In summary, urban

greenways can not only adapt to the situation to the shortage of urban construction land, but also meet the increasing demand of outdoor leisure, adapting to the expansion of urbanization [6]. However, as the city areas become more and more densified, there has been a lack of space for new urban green space [7,8], including greenways. Issues have arisen, for example, many greenways cannot match the needs of the users [9]. On one hand, some greenways in built areas are based on the sidewalks and are too narrow to support the outdoor exercises [10]. On the other hand, to improve the ecological value of greenways, many of them are built outside the city [11], increasing the distance between city users and green spaces. The development of the society has led to even higher demands for open spaces [12]. Thus for urban greenways, a big challenge is that how to better serve residents instead of being a waste public sources.

Urban greenways usually have multi-functions [13], such as ecological services, recreation, commuting, and economic development [5]. To meet the challenge, the first step is to get a deep understanding of the greenway functions. One of the most important functions of urban greenways is to improve biodiversity [5]. More native species would inhabit greenways especially the urban stream corridors when the environment is renovated [14]. For recreational use, urban greenways are built to serve the urban residents by improving the natural and physical environment [15], helping people to get more outdoor activities such as physical exercise, recreation and enjoying the scenery [16–19], thus improving their physical and mental health [17]. A study indicates that people who use the greenways to exercise are more likely to meet national health standards [20]. The health benefits of greenways are impacted by the distance between greenways and residential areas, which especially increase first and then decrease in a certain distance [21]. The social benefit is also one of the important influences of greenways. On one hand, residents seek to improve community relationships in greenways [22] as the greenways near residential areas attract people to go outdoors, which can increase the frequency of neighbors' meeting [22,23]. Meanwhile, the greenways can be used as a place for community residents and their families to have fun and communicate. Through participating in these collective activities, the neighborhood interaction and community cohesion would be enhanced [15,23,24]. On the other hand, greenways help to improve social equity by serving users of a diverse sociodemographic background, especially in developing countries [9]. Urban greenways also bear important traffic functions. Many urban greenways are the essential roads for people to go to work and do shopping, which also connect communities, parks and important urban service facilities. In this way, people can reach their destinations such as shops, restaurants and transportation stations through greenways in a short time, which will improve people's travel efficiency [25–27]. In addition to the above functions, other functions of urban greenways have been further expanded recently. Some urban greenways can be used as places for urban commercial activities, allowing small vendors to enter the greenway space through time-sharing. This phenomenon is especially concentrated in the greenways close to residents or within the residential areas [28]. What's more, urban greenways also have certain impacts on the economy of residential areas. For example, urban greenways can improve the property value of nearby owners [23]. Of all the above functions, recreation is the one that the users care about the most, and satisfaction for greenways would decline if the economy function is too strong [22].

In previous studies, scholars often regarded urban greenways as a whole, while the functions of a certain greenway may be affected by its location. Greenways can show different characteristics according to different environments [5]. For example, the waterfront greenway owns better natural environment, while the greenway next to the city road has more convenient transportation. The biodiversity and recreation functions of different urban greenways will affect people's usage modes [14], which in turn affect the main functions of greenways. Among all the influencing factors, accessibility and the distance between greenways and residential areas are the most important ones [29,30]. This is because whether the greenway is easy to reach or leave directly affects the frequency of people visiting the greenway [5,31]. Greenways close to residential areas are accessed more frequently by nearby residents [15,29], and can perform various functions [23]. Through literature research, the characteristics of such greenways can be summarized: they are next to urban communities or go through residential areas, and mainly serve

nearby communities [13,15,29,32], so they can be defined as "community greenways". There have been plenty cases of community greenways, such as Hudson River waterfront Greenway in New York and Kameido Ryokudo Park in Japan (Figure 1). In Nanshan District of Shenzhen, China, the community greenway density reaches 1.08 km/km2 [33] because there is requirement for constructing greenways near residential area in Pearl River Delta. Though community greenways have been common in many places, there is not yet an academic consensus on community greenways.

**Figure 1.** Mappings of the cases of community greenways ((**a**) Hudson River waterfront Greenway in New York; (**b**) Kameido Ryokudo Park in Japan) (Source: the authors redrawing of the base map in mapbox).

In the authors' opinion, the community greenway can be regarded as branch "urban greenways" or "local trails" by the classification of greenways in the previous literature. Urban greenways include higher levels of development and have high levels of access to densely populated areas [5] and local trails were trails where more than 50% of the respondents are from a distance of 5 miles or less [29]. Community greenways can be subdivided from the above two categories because community greenways are even closer to residential areas and serve a smaller area. This could lead to different characteristics in the daily interactions between residents and community greenways. Some studies have focused on community greenways. For example, Akpinar studied the use patterns and factors influencing the use of Kosuyolu Urban Greenway (KUG) in Turkey, which is located within 1000 m for 30,000 inhabitants [13] and Wang did research on the construction of Furong greenway in Shenzhen, which is beside seven communities [34]. Community greenways have the main functions of urban greenways: providing leisure space and alternative transportation paths and connecting communities with nearby parks and service facilities. The main characteristics of community greenways is the location, which is close to or deep inside communities and extends to people's everyday living space. The interaction between residents and community greenways may not only affect aspects of recreation and exercise, but also in daily transportation, communication and even in the everyday activities in front of the house. A previous study has shown that greenways can improve the quality of lives [15]. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of research that focus on the activities happening in community greenways and the integrated benefits of such space. So, the question is: how do community greenways serve for the everyday activities of residents as an overall resource instead of just a recreational resource? Scholars have regarded greenways in communities as leisure space, while overlooked the multi-functions of greenways as an integrated resource to the community [5]. This leads to the isolation of greenways from the everyday lives of the residents, thus ignoring the potential benefits of the greenways.

This study takes community greenways as a specific type of urban greenways and analyzes how community greenways serve the residents from the perspective of everyday life in public space. This life is continuous in time and also public in space [35]. Applying ideas in "life between buildings", the activities in communities can be divided into necessary activities, optional activities and social

activities [36], including all public activities in open space. Recreation is only a part of the optional activities. As the public space "beside the house", community greenways shorten the distance between public space and residents' life. From the perspective of everyday life, a vibrant public space can performs the pre-designed function, but also allows residents to creatively expand the functions of the space [37]. The public space should be related to the lives of the residents. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship of community greenways and residents' daily life. The three specific questions include: (1) How do residents use community greenways in their daily life? (2) How do residents evaluate community greenways in everyday activities? (3) What are the key elements that residents consider in the construction of community greenways? From the above three aspects, the authors study on the questions how community greenways serve for residents' daily life and seek to build a better community environment.
