56 scott Gabriel knowles is assistant
ansWers
Ask
professor of history and director of the Great
Works symposium at drexel university. He is
the editor of a forthcoming book on the city
planning work and legacy of edmund Bacon,
and is currently writing a book titled
Experts in Disaster: A History of Risk and
Authority in the modern United States.
an
urban Historian
Q: What is Philadelphia’s no little plans.”
current era — is it a post- Philadelphia’s culture
industrial city transitioning is more of a city of
into a new era? slumped shoulders
— Kendra, Philadelphia, Pa. via americancity.org where one should
keep ambitions (like
I threw this question out to a cross- Quaker grave makers)
section of Philadelphia urbanists and small and unobtrusive.
was not surprised to find a (mostly)
enthusiastic assessment of the post- Amy Smith
industrial possibilities for the Co-Founder, Headlong
city. If it is helpful to coin a name for Dance Theater
this period, you might say we
are in the “New Creative” era right I think Philly is
now. Even in the midst of a fiscal transitioning into
crisis, Philadelphians are thinking a European-style,
innovatively about the medical and environmentally
education sectors, about sustainability conscious, arts-
and technology, about policy and fits a generation coming of age and friendly, high-tech city. I remember
governance reforms that might begin influence that isn’t repressed and finds ages ago when they tried to close
to turn the page on a generation of it easy and comforting to communicate. Chestnut Street to car traffic — of
fleeing residents, failing schools and course, it didn’t work back then. But
unsafe streets. (Read more commentary Charles Haas I can imagine in 20 years a huge part
by Eugenie Birch, Greg Heller and Drexel University, Department of Civil, of Center City with no fossil-fuel
others at americancity.org.) Architectural and Environmental traffic, only bikes and walkers (maybe
Engineering trolleys?) and some electric mini-cars