Southern Village is a cute housing and restaurants development in Chapel Hill. It has a 2.4 mile paved greenway that is great because of its varied sights! Starting at the far south end, at Dogwood Acres Dr (near Highway 15-501) you can choose several paved trails within the forest or walk around the soccer fields and around a circular area with lots of flowers. There are six well-kept workout stations along the path. Then as you head north from Southern Community Playground you go through more forest on a wider path, and then pass some lovely homes. The path is uphill and downhill, giving you a good workout. At the fork, take the left path to go under the freeway in a tunnel. Then you will reach Morgan Creek Greenway. You can go right to Merritt's Pasture, a field, or left to the Morgan Creek Trailhead parking lot. The sewer cylinders on the Merritt's Pasture end of Morgan Creek Greenway smell bad, so avoid that route in summer.

Most of the Southern Village Greenway does not have sewer cylinders, and the ones it does have do not smell, so it's a great choice in summer and for your health! The only downside of this greenway is that shade is intermittent so you can only do it on an overcast day.
For a shady walk, explore the streets in Southern Village. It is gorgeous and you can walk a long way! Take Brookgreen or Parkview Crescent, Highgrove Dr, then Hillspring Ln. There are sidewalks on both sides of the road (surprisingly in Chapel Hill, which is otherwise pretty civilized, this is a rare thing). Every street has different homes, delightful flowers, and lots of shade from trees. It's wonderful! Hillspring Lane is a particularly stunning street with its steep incline, houses raised way up, and Highgrove Pocket Park with its stone wall. From these heights you also see some views, which is a rare thing in Chapel Hill. Bring your phone so you can wonder around, get lost, and then still get back to your parking spot.
After, have a cool drink at Weaver Street Market in the main town area of Southern Village. It's lovely to sit outside at their seating listening to the church bells chime. They also have indoor seating if you need to cool down.
For parking info, see below.

Directions

Park at the Southern Community Playground's huge parking lot at 1300 U.S. Hwy 15/501, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
There is also tons of parking near the restaurants on Market Street.

Click on map for interactive view