Margaret Wong has a vision. The co-chair of Friends of the Ann Arbor Greenway and self-described accidental activist envisions cutting a swath of green through the heart of Ann Arbor — creating a continuous strip of parkland stretching from the Huron River to the University Golf Course. This vision involves converting three pieces of prime downtown real estate into parkland in order to facilitate the creation of a linear Central Park-style strip of green. Sadly, the Ann Arbor Greenway is a half-baked proposal that falls short of its promise to support a supposedly eco-friendly city. Keeping downtown density low by snapping up property in order to make Ann Arbor feel more green is an unsustainable plan that will only stunt the city’s vibrancy and lead to more urban sprawl.

The Downtown Development Authority’s counterproposal involves building a five-deck parking structure on one of the contested lots, as well as a medium-rise building that would place an additional 200 housing units downtown — adding to the area’s density. The organization recognizes the importance of building up the city’s downtown in order to enhance its vitality and staunch the spread of sprawling subdivisions on the outskirts of town. After all, Ann Arbor already has 154 parks, many of which remain perennially underutilized.

The DDA is facing a substantial public relations problem among Ann Arbor residents, as parking garages and condos lack the emotional appeal of green space. “People have done a very good job of making this a black-and-white issue,” says DDA board member and Arbor Brewing Company owner Rene Greff. “Being against parks is like being against puppies. Who is going to be against that?”

This sentimental attachment to green space has won over a substantial number of Ann Arbor’s residents. Wong’s Friends of the Ann Arbor Greenway is circulating a petition that has gathered more than 600 signatures, and the March 21 City Council meeting was with packed with militant Greenway supporters who openly booed those who spoke on behalf of the DDA’s proposal. Ann Arbor resident Steven Tutino went so far as to suggest that “next to landfills and war zones, parking garages are the worst use of our precious Earth.” What he fails to acknowledge is that by impeding growth in the city center, expansion is pushed elsewhere. The most environmentally sustainable place to build housing in Ann Arbor is downtown, where high density will promote a pedestrian-friendly environment and discourage the expansion of subdivisions in neighboring Saline or Dexter. By Tutino’s logic, if parking garages are indeed as unpleasant as landfills and war zones, the wasteland of cul-de-sacs and oversized ranch houses that are symptomatic of urban sprawl must be the aesthetic equivalent of one of the lower circles of hell. Urban planning student Dan Kennelly says in The Ann Arbor News that “waving a banner of environmentalism to pursue policies motivated by self-interest undermines sincere efforts toward sustainability,” meaning that the warm, Earth-friendly feeling that comes from having a big park downtown doesn’t outweigh the negative environmental consequences of the subsequent profusion of suburbs elsewhere.

Despite the potentially crippling effects of halting downtown expansion, Greenway proponents claim that it is necessary in order to save the city from stagnation. One resident, Barbara Annis, decries the proposal to increase density by saying that “if Ann Arbor loses its people friendliness through overbuilding, it will quickly become another tired Midwest town.”

Ann Arbor News columnist Sonia Schmerl paints the Greenway as an instant cure-all for all of the city’s ills, as it will magically “create jobs, enhance property values, expand local businesses, attract new or relocating businesses, increase local tax revenues, decrease local government expenditures and promote a local community.”

Others say that there is no need to cater to the educated young people who are attracted to the cosmopolitan lifestyle associated with high density. Matthew DeGenaro, another Ann Arbor resident, says that the necessity of yuppies is exaggerated and that ”we should be trying to attract more wealthy retirees to live here.” He invokes Las Vegas, that paragon of sustainable living, saying that “it has a tremendous growth rate based on retiree wealth.

Don’t old people deserve “cool,” too?