You Can't Go Home Again
Dear Russ,
I like your story about Fernandina. To me, it precisely illustrates the
impossibility of starting over from scratch, which is what towns like
Celebration promise.
I like many aspects of Celebration. The emphasis on sidewalks and
walkability, the traditional design of the houses, the smaller lots that give a
sense of place to the streets, the back alleys that put the cars in the
background, and the planning that gives equal importance to the individual
houses and the common shared spaces. What I am skeptical of is turning one's
back on so many aspects of everyday American life. For example, I happen to
like Home Depot. If I lived in Celebration, I would have to drive some distance
to find one. Nor do I remember seeing a service station. Nor a car wash. Nor a
storage facility. There is no motel, but there is a bed and breakfast (I happen
to prefer the former). So much of what is necessary to the way we live today is
relegated to "out there."
Celebration doesn't tell us anything about how we could better arrange our
present lives, how we could integrate and knit together convenience stores and
Home Depots, for example, or neighborhoods and strip malls. Inexpensive strip
malls, whatever their appearance, are where little business are born, since
budding entrepreneurs can't afford the rents that elegant town centers charge.
Jane Jacobs long ago wrote that successful cities needed a variety of
buildings, old as well as new, which could serve a variety of functions. The
contradiction of a new town is that everything is new, hence expensive. That is
one explanation for the lack of cheaper houses that both Ross and
Frantz-Collins bemoan. There are no fixer-uppers in Celebration. This is
obviously an unfair criticism, yet it underlines the real limitations of
starting over.
There is another, final aspect to this conundrum. I teach a course about
architecture and urban design to budding developers at the Wharton School.
After a class on New Urbanism, where I showed them several projects and took
them to see Kentlands, a large planned community in Maryland, I asked them to
write a paper about the subject. One of the students wrote: "If there was one
question I would like to ask the people who live in these neotraditional
communities, it would be: What would it take to make you move?" It was a
perceptive observation. Starting over always promises stability--"this time we
are going to do it right"--but, of course, the world will not stop. Somebody
will come up with a better idea. Or, at least, what seems to be a better idea
at the time.
Celebration is in many ways a better idea. No doubt, it is destined to take
its place among a long list of admirable experiments in visionary American
town-making: Williamsburg, Annapolis, Savannah, Forest Hills Gardens,
Radburn--and Seaside. But they are experiments, the mainstream will make its
own way, as it always has done.
All the best,
Witold
