Our Robert Moses

I read with interest in the papers the life story of Edmund Bacon, who passed away at the end of last week. He was a widely respected and remarkably influential city planner in Philadelphia, who was responsible for shaping a range of projects from the rehabilitation of Society Hill to the creation of the Market East mall. Anyway, PoliticsPhilly has the links in case you missed the coverage (check out the vintage Time Magazine cover, if nothing else). He had a vision of Philadelphia joining the nation's top-ranked cities, and he contributed a lot toward making that a reality.