Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town

I read this book AFTER visiting Celebration, Florida. I was interested in more background info and details. We walked down the Main St of town and thought "this is nice" but not very practical. Practical is shopping in [local store] and buying groceries in[local store]. The days of the corner grocer and little hardware store on Main St are long gone so I was curious about the opinions of the author and his neighbors. This is a great story - it seems to be unbiased and does provide good background info on the town without making it boring. The author nicely weaves little stories about the town or tales of the neighbors into this "documentary" to keep the story moving. I know this book is not for everybody but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It's also a great commentary on planned communities in general although I'm not sure that was what the authors intended.

In Celebration, U.S.A. Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins have provided us with a solid background of information on planned communities in the United States, with accounts of interviews conducted with the planners and builders of Celebration, with an overview of the lengthy and complicated transactions between Disney and Florida officials, and with a lively and humorous account of their life in Disney's brave new town. On every page their desire to give the town a fair shake, to be unbiased in their observations, to be wholehearted in their participation, shines through.Celebration has received its share of criticism, based it seems on an anti-Disney bias that does not allow for a fair analysis of the town, its successes or its shortcomings. On the other hand, it is too bad that those who moved to Celebration anticipating a magical solution to familial woes were doomed to come to terms with the reality that is Celebration, and with the fact that pixie dust alone has no curative power over long-standing problems.We have shared the concerns of the authors with the problems at the school, their irritation with shoddy building practices, their delight at the freedom and safety their children experienced in the town, and their pleasure when, at the end of their time there, they knew that what they would miss most is "Celebration's genuine friendliness, a place infused with the sense that everyone there shared the dream of finding a better place to live and, as we had seen finally, a willingness to work to make the dream come true".

Authors Frantz and Collins do an excellent job of treading the delicate line between participant and observer in this in depth, inside, and insightful look at Disney's planned town.I opened the book expecting a hatchet job (these two are reporters, after all) but discovered a balanced and feeling account of what it's like to take part in a turbulent experiment in creating a "real" EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow).Best of all, Frantz and Collins place Celebration in the context of the rich and fascinating history of planned communities in America.My guess is this book will prove an eye-opener for Disney devotees and detractors alike.

Celebration may be the most important experiment in urban living in the last quarter century. Douglas Frantz and Cathy Collins have written exactly the kind of book most of us want to read on the topic -- one that's well-researched and well thought out, but also deeply personal and highly engaging. Their narrative flows along at an unstoppable pace. As you turn from incident to incident, from chapter to chapter, you don't even realize you're learning so much -- about the history of utopias, about arhictecture, about the promise and peril of starting over from scratch. Not until you near the end do you realize you've been privvy to one of the great experiments in the American Dream.Most of the commentary about this book suggests it is about Disney. It's not. This book is about America, about how we love to build something to new, and about the problems that come when our dreams come up against reality. No matter what community you live in, this book will help make your neighborhood a better place, because it will help you be a better neighbor.

A smart idea! Instead of visiting as reporters for a few weeks, the authors moved themselves and their children to Disney's planned community of Celebration, Florida -- then stayed for a year! Here's a real inside viewpoint of Disney's "perfect small town", brought to life by two people who are smart, literate and have a broader view of the meaning, trends and consequences of planned living. As investigative reporters, they cast a wide net -- interviewing executives and residents; getting the back story; examining other planned communities across America (both recent and past). As residents and parents, they also deliver a more realistic, intimate portrait of scraped knees and bruised egos. The lesson is made clear by good, crisp reporting and insider experience: while people can move their families, their possessions and their lives to a new community, ultimately, one thing never changes -- who they are. A delicious read.