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Back to Feet. The inner city, he is convinced, as are most planners, must be restored to the pedestrian, and there are plans for parking garages at the center's edge. Unlike some city theorists, Bacon does not try to talk the automobile out of existence. "The automobile must be treated as an honored guest," says Bacon. But he does feel that the entrance to the city must be attractive, and the vistas must be visually exciting, designed to lead the visitor into the heart of the city. He cites the expansion of the spirit that any walker experiences in Venice, emerging from the crowded alleyways into the huge open space of St. Mark's Square. It is these shared experiences, says Bacon, that give citizens a sense of belonging to and concern for their city. And without them, the city withers.
To bring Philadelphians back from suburban shopping centers to the big stores and little shops in the center of town, Bacon is promoting a $200 million plan for a gigantic terminal east of City Hall on Market Street, which will unite the city's two suburban railroads in a single terminal, and also achieve one of the basic goals of city planning—the separation of wheeled traffic from pedestrian. Bacon's plan also includes widening the sidewalks of Chestnut Street, the city's other main shopping thoroughfare, and making a traffic-free mall of it, with little electric trolleys to carry shoppers.
Renewers of the city want not only to bring people back from the suburbs to shop, but back to town to live. Philadelphia is now devoting 50% of its renewal outlay to residential work not involving major demolition, and some of Bacon's most interesting labor on this level is to be found in Society Hill—so-called after the Free Society of Traders, which originally bought 20,000 acres there from William Penn, rather than the Social Register. Society Hill is studded with 18th century houses and historic landmarks, and Bacon opened up vistas around them by chopping out factories and dingy warehouses, threading greenery through them and building new houses in harmony with the 18th century beauties.
Philadelphia's $593,000 yearly budget for its planning commission provides Bacon with a $20,000 salary and a staff of 65, including 14 architects, seven engineers, three economists, three experts in social science or government, a landscape architect and a mathematics expert. Appropriately enough, Bacon lives in a four-story brick row house in midtown, a 15-minute walk from his office. His outside activities are not exactly wide-ranging. During winter term he conducts an evening course (Historic Examples of Civic Design) at the University of Pennsylvania.
Several nights a week he talks to local gatherings.