Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts 2.0 Is a Risky Revival

A $150 million campaign to restore the run-down street that is host to many of the city’s performing-arts institutions is noble—but could well backfire

By Michael J. Lewis of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"The sad truth is that Philadelphia’s commercial streets have been ailing for some years. Online shopping has ravaged retail in Center City (true Philadelphians do not say “downtown”), and it is not as if there is a surfeit of boutiques searching for fashionable new quarters. One of Jane Jacobs’s other insights is that a city’s most vibrant neighborhoods have a mix of new and old buildings, because it is the low-rent older ones that let the entrepreneur take risks and try something new." 

"A city is an infinitely complex organism, where commerce, urban amenities, street traffic and pedestrian life interact in mysterious ways. Decisions made with the noblest of ideals can have unintended consequences. Philadelphia has been here before. In 1975, on the eve of another national anniversary, the city created the Transitway, a sweeping transformation of Chestnut Street—then the city’s most successful commercial corridor. It would be closed to automobile traffic during working hours, with the exception of buses, turning it into a pedestrian mall by day. After an initial flourish of activity, commercial life declined. Ultimately, it succeeded only in shifting business a block south. A few decades later, the Transitway was abandoned, traffic resumed, and the concrete planters with their shriveled pear trees and ginkgoes were quietly removed."