Deborah Dilworth Bishop, the daughter of Mayor Richardson Dilworth, said he was “a very egotistical man and he was absolutely convinced that he was right all the time.” Penn urban historian Tom Sugrue called him “dogged and persistent.” Historian Scott Knowles of Drexel University noted Bacon’s role “at the periphery” of politics, which he said “gave him a chance to try ideas, fail, come back with a new idea.” Architect Denise Scott Brown said because he abandoned efforts at more aggressive public housing, and because his Independence Mall and Urban renewal projects “gashed” the urban fabric, “Bacon’s legacy to Philadelphia was evil.” Scholar Shan Holt credits Bacon with “saying a city is a place for people to live and so ought to have…some breathing room, some moving room, some class.”

The architect Hyman Myers knew him as a truly big picture visionary, who saw cities in their historic, economic, and societal context. So we asked everyone who came into our studio how they would describe Bacon and how they might assess his legacy. Episode 3, “Promise for a Better City,” covers the period 1944-1964 (you can watch it HERE.) Like many of our characters, Bacon was well-cloaked in myth, misunderstanding, and cliche. To register, click HERE.Ībout a year ago, working on the third episode of the documentary film series “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment,” my colleagues and I at History Making Productions began to conduct interview research on the role of powerful city planner Edmund Bacon on Philadelphia in the mid-20th century. The public is invited to the official book launch on May 16 at 6PM at the Center for Architecture.

Now, his long-anticipated biography of Bacon is out, published this month by the University of Pennsylvania Press. In 2002, when Bacon was 92 and Heller was 20, he became Bacon’s personal archivist. Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia, Penn Press, 2013, by Gregory HellerĮditor’s Note: For about a decade, the accomplished urban thinker and practitioner Greg Heller has been imagining a biography of the visionary city planner Edmund Bacon.

Design of cities by edmund bacon