Philadelphia is known for being a revolutionary city in regards to government, but it is less known that Philadelphia is a city of revolutionary design. William Penn, the founder of the city, envisioned a peaceful farm-based metropolis where spacious gardens and orchards dominated the landscape. Penn is the reason why Philadelphia's streets are a thousand feet wide – space was the revolutionary concept behind philadelphia.
However, the cities residents eventually lost sight of Penn's original vision. Philadelphia is still spacious, but falls very short of Penn's plans for natural beauty and farming to be incorporated into Center City.
Why Chestnut Street didn't work... In the late 1970's Philadelphia transformed Chestnut Street into a car-free, out-door shopping mall. The city was attempting to draw people back downtown and away from the popular suburban shopping malls. The city insisted on reconstructing the street which brought business to a halt for the up-scale shops that had resided there for many years. Most of the shops chose to relocate. They were replaced by fast-food restaurants, arcades and Dollar Stores. Chestnut Street became a baron wasteland of crime and with cuts in city services trash began to pile up.
Why Walnut Street Could Work... Presently, Walnut Street is similar to what Chestnut Street was in the early 1970's. It's lined with small restaurants, boutiques and other small shops that would benefit from a slower-paced pedestrian traffic and an increased availability of outside seating. No construction is needed to make Walnut Street Car-Free. The city could place removable barricades at the mouth of Walnut Street for each intersection to allow traffic to cross over but not turn onto the street.
Why We Need Car-Free Streets... Center City Philadelphia is tightly packed between two rivers. The city was designed to feel spacious and open. Currently, we have abandoned these intentions to an alarming degree. The incredible number of automobiles within center city greatly diminishes the sense of open-space we're intended to experience here by the city's founders. The intention of this advertisement is to create a dialogue within the city on how to deal with the growing number of automobiles crowding the streets. The city would benefit greatly by directing out-of-towners to multi-level parking garages just off the highway. If the city maintained an affordable parking rate and made it very easy to walk or be transported to attractions and services, less drivers would feel compelled to clog city streets looking for cheap metered parking.
The high-frequency of automobile advertisements make it difficult to believe the incredible volume of cars we're surrounded by is strange at all. Because of the way cars have effected our culture and because of their incredible numbers – It's important that we now make decisions about where automobiles are appropriate and where they are not.
The following alterations to this map of Philadelphia seek to bring back the natural beauty and slower pace of life Penn had originally intended for our great – and still growing city...