Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville SC is a fairly typical midsized American city, although it is one that has made some excellent investments in livability in the past fifty or so years. Downtown Greenville has a Main Street that was redesigned by the famous landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and that has been described by urbanist Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City, as one of the best in the US. It has a Rudy Brunner-award-winning downtown park with a river and a large waterfall spanned by an iconic pedestrian bridge. And it has a growing multi-use walking and biking network anchored by the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which bisects the new 60-acre Unity Park — among other great investments in the city’s quality of life.
And yet even downtown Greenville, with its celebrated Main Street, has dedicated a great deal of space to parking lots and parking garages. Many people drive to downtown Greenville to walk around. That’s been a great thing— but to a point. It is not necessarily a good model for Greenville’s future going forward.
The following studies, which build on Greenville’s past investments, explore a future where there could be a lot more downtown to walk around and enjoy. And maybe without having to drive there.
To see how much space is given to parking lots and parking garages, let’s start …
That’s a lot of space: Millions of square feet that could become many places to live, work, and shop instead of space to simply store cars.
Greenville and other cities weren’t always like this.
Some of the best parts of Greenville were built before cars. Coincidence?
Now let’s look at a part of the city that used to be part of downtown...
Video by M.J. Ripley