Cultural Resources

Role of Cultural Resources in a Greenway System

A cultural resource is any entity that fulfills a vital community need or desire to residents and travelers alike. Without the vital services provided by the following cultural resources, the communities would be far less supportive of day to day life and functional as a whole.

The cultural resources chosen for this project are as follows:

• Grocery Stores

• Retail Centers

• Community Services

• Child Care Centers

• Community Centers

• Medical Facilities

• Post Offices

• Public Gardens

• Historic Monuments/Markers

• Higher Education

• Pre-K to 12 Schools

• Libraries

• Places of Worship

• Cropland

Considering these important cultural resources in the planning process for a Greenway System is crucial in order to ensure people are connected to these resources through the greenway system. Since a significant feature of such a system can be multi-use pathways and trails, residents and visitors would be able to explore the community and discover/access these community assets via the system.

Analysis

The cultural resources geospatial data for Salt Lake County was accessed through the AGRC and the WFRC.

Countywide resource diversity was visualized by assigning a 1/4 mile buffer, representing a walkable zone, to each data point. Visualized over the top of each other, the combined data layers can shed light on hubs of cultural resource diversity. Darker blue areas on the map illustrate areas or "hubs" or higher cultural resource diversity.

Countywide individual resource density was visualized by applying the "kernal density" tool to each individual resource data layer. The result of this process shows the density of each resource across the county. These layers are best viewed individually but can be layered two or three at a time to see density of several resources at once. This data is helpful for locating areas in the county that have a lack of one particular resource.

The highest resource diversity in the county is found in Salt Lake and South Salt Lake, unsurprisingly. Other hubs of diversity were located on the west side of the interstate, surrounding the agricultural zone of the county. These areas are visualized under the "Focus Areas" map layer.

The focus areas include hubs near Magna, West of West Valley City, Kearns, West Jordan, South East of South Jordan, and Herriman. These areas have notable areas with a high density of diverse cultural resources.

The "half-moon" orientation of these hubs are aligned well for a greenway system supporting this area. Additional east-west connections can be made to connect to the Jordan River Trail and the associated hubs in this area.

The resulting greenway system here could effectively function as a spine for which future connections can be made to new development hubs in the agricultural area. A foothill trail along the Bonneville Shoreline on this west side could even complete the loop here in the future.

A majority of the resources are of highest density in the Salt Lake area. However, there a number of resources that have hubs of higher density further south and west.

The Resources with the furthest spread are Medical Facilities, Post Offices, Pre-K to 12 Schools, Child Care Centers, and Grocery Stores. The remaining resources do not spread as far into the Oquirrh region. With further development, the additional resources must be brought in.

Accordingly, this makes it very important to connect the focus hubs eastwards to these other resources via trails.