When Philadelphia's iconoclastic city planner Edmund N. Bacon
looked into his crystal ball in 1959, he saw a remarkable vision:
"Philadelphia as an unmatched expression of the vitality of
American technology and culture." In that year Bacon penned an
essay for "Greater Philadelphia Magazine," originally entitled
"Philadelphia in the Year 2009," in which he imagined a city
remade, modernized in time to host the 1976 Philadelphia World's
Fair and Bicentennial celebration, an event that would be a
catalyst for a golden age of urban renewal.What Bacon did not
predict was the long, bitter period of economic decline, population
dispersal, and racial confrontation that Philadelphia was about to
enter. As such, his essay comes to us as a time capsule, a message
from one of the city's most influential and controversial shapers
that prompts discussions of what was, what might have been, and
what could yet be in the city's future."Imagining Philadelphia"
brings together Bacon's original essay, reprinted here for the
first time in fifty years, and a set of original essays on the
past, present, and future of urban planning in Philadelphia. In
addition to examining Bacon and his motivations for writing the
piece, the essays assess the wider context of Philadelphia's
planning, architecture, and real estate communities at the time,
how city officials were reacting to economic decline, what national
precedents shaped Bacon's faith in grand forms of urban renewal,
and whether or not it is desirable or even possible to adopt
similarly ambitious visions for contemporary urban planning and
economic development. The volume closes with a vision of what
Philadelphia might look like fifty years from now.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
