Just Another Planned Community?
Dear Russ,
Since you mention reviews of the Celebration books, I
thought that Kurt Andersen's review in The New
Yorker (Sept. 6, 1999) was on the money. It had a touch of skepticism
regarding the subject (after all, this was The New
Yorker ), but took Disney's town-building attempt seriously--except for the
preposterous name, of course, although preposterous town names are hardly
unknown in U.S. history--New Hope, for example, or New Harmony, which Andersen
mentions, or my favorite, also in Florida, Panacea.
Andersen raises an interesting point regarding the town
of Celebration: That is, it is not really such a novelty. Most of what the two
books describe about their experience of living in Disney's town (covenants,
problems with house construction, issues of governance, questions of
exclusivity, people's motivations for "starting over," and so on) is found in
any of the thousands of master-planned communities that are built in this
country every year. The experience of moving into a brand-new town is
interesting, but neither Celebration, U.S.A. nor
The Celebration Chronicles (pretentious title, no?)
sufficiently acknowledges that it is an ordinary one. Every year, like
clockwork, we build between 1 million and 2 million new houses, the majority of
which are in master-planned communities, some of which, like Sun Cities, are
much larger. (Incidentally, Frances Fitzgerald has written interestingly about
the subject of contemporary new communities in Cities
on a Hill . A much more thoughtful book than either of the ones we are
considering.)
Of course, one suspects that neither Celebration, U.S.A. nor The Celebration
Chronicles would have been written had not the Disney Co. been a part of
the story. In that sense, there is a Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not quality to
these books. One wishes for a Tracy Kidder to write about the same subject.
Kidder's gift is to draw people out, and to keep himself in the background.
What mars both these books, in my opinion, is that one finds out altogether too
much about the authors' opinions, which are, frankly, neither original nor all
that interesting. Frantz (full disclosure here, I correspond with him) and
Collins tend to be earnest and well-meaning, hence sometimes a tad pompous.
Ross, an academic, never lets us forget that he is from New York and not easily
to be taken in. I tend to agree with Andersen, that Frantz/Collins are the
better reporters, and have done their homework--and produced a better book.
I'm not sure I agree with your archeology-in-reverse
analogy. As an architect, I have seen many buildings, building complexes, and
planned communities completed but without inhabitants. It is spooky, I agree,
but hardly unusual. Again, with Celebration there is the tendency to inflate
the ordinary into the extraordinary, as if the presence of Disney raised the
ante, somehow. Of course, Disney's involvement did alter what happened (the
school, the town center, homebuyers' expectations). Maybe we can talk about
that next time.
Regards,
Witold
