A Greenways Action Plan for the Tunkhannock Creek
Watershed
All good planning must begin with a survey of actual
resources: the landscape, the people, the work-a-day
activities in a community. Good planning does not begin with
an abstract and arbitrary scheme that it seeks to impose on a
community; it begins with a knowledge of existing conditions and
opportunities.
The final test of an
economic system is not the tons of iron, the tanks of oil, or the
miles of textiles it produces; the final test lies in its
ultimate products – the sort of men and women it nurtures and the
order and beauty and sanity of their communities.
-- Lewis Mumford
It is with this in mind that we examine our potential greenways –
linear corridors of open space – and offer our thoughts as to what
we must do to protect and enrich our neighborhoods. We offer
this plan with several caveats:
First, through public meetings, individual interviews, casual
conversations, and countless hours on the Internet and in the
library, we have gathered information about the Tunkhannock
Creek Watershed. Yet, because of the region’s constant
evolution, this information is only a snapshot of the watershed
at this particular time. As the region changes, the plan must
change.
Second, the Special Places category for the boroughs and townships
is not meant to be the definitive inventory of places worth
preserving, nor is there any thought that these places are, or
should be made, public. Special Places is a combination of
sites that are important for the promotion of biodiversity,
recreation, historic and cultural preservation and, in some cases,
merely a listing of places that are special to the hearts of
watershed residents. They are offered as a starting point in
designing individual linkages to places that are important to our
residents.
Greenway planning, by its very nature, is a work in progress.
While suggestions and observations have been made, it is incumbent
upon individual communities and townships to decide where they want
to go from here. Countryside Conservancy stands, with
countless other organizations and governmental agencies, ready to
offer assistance in bringing these dreams to reality.
Dianne Fitze, Director
Countryside Conservancy, 11/02
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