I got wind of this story in the Washington Post from a pop culture blog with local proprietorship. The blogger uses this very telling quote from the WaPo's architecture critic as his title:
Just about every mistake that a city can make has been made here -- and the consequences are increasingly apparent.
It strikes me that that can be said about so many decisions made in Philadelphia in the last 50 years. However, before I let some beltway-insider-hoity-toity architecture critic beat up on my town, I'd like to point out that Philadelphia - both the government of and the people of - has also done a lot of things right.
Just on the planning and architecture front we have:
Breaking through the "gentleman's agreement" that barred developers from building anything that exceeded the height of William Penn on City Hall. Starting essentially 60 years late, Philly has caught up nicely and is rapidly getting one of those iconic skylines that will allow people to identify the city easily with the "establishing shots" used in television and movies.
Avenue of the Arts - How many people think that the area between City Hall and Washington Ave on Broad Street is better now than it was just 20 years ago?
Schuylkill River Waterfront - Same question except change 20 years to 7 years ago.
On other issues:
Wireless Philly - we started first and many have followed. The only unfortunate part is that many have already surpassed but we'll get there soon.
Society Hill - one of the true success stories of urban revitalization. This area has served as a model, both in what to do and what to beware of, for several other neighborhoods. If that model could be copied while protecting current residents from being priced out, Philadelphia could be said to have made every correct decision that a city could make.
That said, the jury is still out on a lot of potentially good things:
School reform - when young families start moving in to Philadelphia so that there kids can go to school here, then we'll know it's really working.
Penn's Landing - 13 acres with more unrealized potential than Samuel Dalembert.
And, to bring us back full circle, the President's House - Will the Park Service (not technically under city control but close enough) ask for changes to the design so that the current dig is permanently incorporated into the site? They should learn from the experience of the past six weeks during which thousands of people have perched on a little, makeshift platform (that probably cost all of two hundred bucks) to look at actual history, rather than see some museum-ified, touristy version of history.
So, scholars of historical and contemporary Philadelphia, what has this city done well or not-so-well in the last 50 years? Have at it in the comments.