High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005) was a noted American urban planner, architect, educator and author. During his tenure as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970, his visions shaped today`s Philadelphia, the city in which he was born, to the extent that he is sometimes described as "The Father of Modern Philadelphia."