The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's Brave New Town

The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's Brave New Town (1999)
By Andrew Ross

Synopsis: Andrew Ross spent one year living and doing participant observation in Celebration, Florida in order to see what it was like to live there - to discover its problems, its residents, the general attitude there, its issues, etc. Though it's very American in its desire to start from scratch and create something new, Celebration has its good and bad points, like all other towns. Though Celebration's marketers rely heavily on allusions to "childhood innocence" and "the good old days," it is a high tech place with a progressive alternative public school that parents tend to squabble over (Ross claims it's because they viewed the school as a consumer product that may not have been delivering results). Ross also points out that many residents were angry about the "shoddy construction" of Celebration's homes. Basically, asks a few questions: Can a corporation provide a public realm? is this just another privatopia? What about taste/aesthetics? Is it the shape itself of New Urbanism that increases a sense of community, or is it the people who seek that out?

Interesting Specifics:

Celebration is all about the "iconography of innocence" (16).

Contains an interesting section on model home interiors and market research (pp. 25-27).

Attacks Kunstler for his "crotchety version of orderly civic conduct" (76) and says it is "stuffed with contempt for lower-middle-class taste" (76).

New Urbanism clings hard to the belief that "the design of a physical environment has a fundamental impact upon social behavior" (78).

"The closer people live to one another the more likely they are to guard their privacy" (85).

Pattern books contain all the design a developer could use.

Public schools have long been seen as "the unique source of American national unity" (138).

Spends a lot of time examining Celebration's school, which can be seen as its one utopian element - and which has been, ironically, the source of most of the city's controversy.

Says that the trend of saying "it's not natural to notice skin color" is just the latest from of racism (270).

There's a seedy tourist attraction called "Old Town" right near Celebration.

Interacts With:
Behind the Gates, Brave New Neighborhoods, Building Suburbia