Baguio takes second look at Burnham Plan

BAGUIO CITY – This city, the country’s undisputed summer capital, was designed by Chicago-based architect Daniel Burnham to host 25,000 residents in 1906.

Officially chartered in 1909, Baguio will celebrate its centennial next year. The city achieved its maximum population in less than 50 years, from 489 residents in 1903 to 29,262 in 1948. Almost 100 years later, local architects and urban planners have been busy studying how much of the city’s development template could still be applied to an urban renewal campaign for a city population that reached 183,000 in 1991.

Baguio’s population grew to just under 300,000 after 2005, says Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr.
Filipinos today only remember Burnham for the manmade lake and park named after him. But his name has been inevitably tied to the city he helped build.