Philadelphia: Planning a City

stand on any street corner in Center City it all makes sense east-west streets with names like spruce locust chestnut and Market north-south streets numbered from first actually front symmetrical orderly walkable and it didn't just happen in 1682 Pennsylvania founder William Penn and his surveyor Thomas whole laid out a plan for a new city in a new world a map was produced and circulated throughout Europe to advertise land ownership opportunities in Pennsylvania's capital city Philadelphia a brief account of the province of Pennsylvania in America as Penn titled it describe the land how it could be made profitable for farmers and day laborers and for younger sons with no inheritance it described Penn's plan for its governance and how to buy property interestingly it made no mention of religious practice that map is the famous grid we walk and drive today but like most plans it went through many changes pan envisioned a Quaker utopia but he also wanted to turn the huge debt the British monarch owed his father Admiral William Penn aim to cash homes plan needed to allocate large tracts to Penn and his family on the northern edge of the city a strip of land from the Delaware to the Schuylkill a thousand feet wide was reserved Springettsbury manor was named for Penn's then wife Julie Elma spring get pan and home set five squares one in each quadrant of the city the central square to be the town center with public buildings for a long time the squares served as burial grounds development and population huddled close to the Delaware River ports where the money and action was Pan had hoped for westward growth close to the Schuylkill but little business was generating settlers took to naming streets after themselves but Penn believed this egoism did not fit in with his Quaker City so he changed those names to trees common to the colony William Penn invested heavily in his colony but Penn's investments did not yield the hoped-for returns he spent time in debtors prison the purpose of the orderly grid was to avoid the dark alleys ridden with vice and crime that were so prevalent in chaotic European cities like Paris and London as Philadelphia's population grew and diversified settlers disobeyed the grid structure out of necessity and defiance and carved out alleys of their own Penn's dream for a clean safe city unique in its planning was on the brink of failure but ultimately the city not only grew but flourished with the grid patterns surviving despite the many phases of development this grid that dominates Philadelphia today would later be adopted in other cities like New York Washington DC and in western cities like Salt Lake and Oklahoma City urban planning a tradition established by William Penn and Thomas home continued with the 19th century plan for Fairmount Park the design of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway a century ago the preservation of Independence Hall and the urban renewal of society Hill that grid and the planning which produced it remain among William Penn's lasting legacies you

Channel: Philadelphia: The Great Experiment

Views: 32,565

Rating: 4.7623763 out of 5

Keywords: City (Type Of Fictional Setting), Planning (Quotation Subject), William Penn (Author), Philadelphia (City/Town/Village), Urban Planning (Field Of Study), Religious Society Of Friends (Religion), History (TV Genre), George III Of The United Kingdom (Monarch), Philadelphia: The Great Experiment, History Making Productions

Id: 4VAv8AuG2Fs

Length: 5min 4sec (304 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 18 2015