In the mid-twentieth century, as Americans abandoned city centers in
droves to pursue picket-fenced visions of suburbia, architect and urban
planner Edmund Bacon turned his sights on shaping urban America. As
director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Bacon forged new
approaches to neighborhood development and elevated Philadelphia's image
to the level of great world cities. Urban development came with costs,
however, and projects that displaced residents and replaced homes with
highways did not go uncriticized, nor was every development that Bacon
envisioned brought to fruition. Despite these challenges, Bacon oversaw
the planning and implementation of dozens of redesigned urban spaces:
the restored colonial neighborhood of Society Hill, the new office
development of Penn Center, and the transit-oriented shopping center of
Market East.
Ed Bacon is the first biography of this charismatic but controversial
figure. Gregory L. Heller traces the trajectory of Bacon's two-decade
tenure as city planning director, which coincided with a
transformational period in American planning history. Edmund Bacon is
remembered as a larger-than-life personality, but in Heller's detailed
account, his successes owed as much to his savvy negotiation of city
politics and the pragmatic particulars of his vision. In the present
day, as American cities continue to struggle with shrinkage and economic
restructuring, Heller's insightful biography reveals an inspiring
portrait of determination and a career-long effort to transform planning
ideas into reality.
