The Celebration Chronicles

by Andrew Ross, Ph. D.

  2 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great Cities (New York: Random House, 1961).

  3 Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (New York: Pantheon, 1981), p. 33.

  4 Aside from the Celebration group, the list of names would include Arata Isozaki, Frank Gehry, Charles Gwathmey, Michael Rotondi, Stanley Tiger-man, Thomas Beeby, Graham Gund, Peter Eisenman, Robert Siegel, Antoine Predock, Rem Koolhaas, Jean-Paul Vigier, Antoine Grumbach, Alan Lapidus, Hans Hollein, Bernard Tschumi, Arquitectonica, and Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberg.

  5 See Beth Dunlop, Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture (New York: Harry Abrams, 1996).

  6 Deborah Dietsch, “Disney World Turns 25, Builds New Town,” Architecture, November, 1996, p. 23.

  7 Dunlop, Building a Dream, p. 139.

  8 Darryl Owens, “Your Baby and Child—20 Years Later,” Florida Magazine, November 1997, p. 27.

  9 Hope VI, active in 53 cities, will replace existing superblocks with neotraditional public housing. According to a nationwide survey conducted by New Urban News in October 1997, there were over 135 New Urban developments in planning nationally, 64 of which were under active construction (most in Florida or California), while countless other “heritage developers” had adopted some of the movement’s design principles in a diluted form. In January 1999, Al Gore launched the $10 billion Livability Agenda, aimed at “smart growth” to rectify “decades of ill-planned and ill-coordinated development.”

  10 Charles Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors: A Study of Prejudice in Housing (New York: Harper & Row, 1955), p. 152.

  11 Dolores Hayden, Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work, and Family Life (New York: Norton, 1984), p. 56. For accounts of racial exclusion in postwar suburbanization, see Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 190–230; and Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors.

  12 James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscapes (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 124. See also Home From Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

  Other relevant books on New Urbanism include Peter Katz, The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994); Alex Krieger, ed., Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberg: Towns and Town-Making Principles (New York: Rizzoli, 1991); Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Peter Calthorpe and Sim Van der Ryn, Sustainable Communities: A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Surburbs, and Towns (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986); Robert Stern, Pride of Place: Building the American Dream (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986); Doug Kelbaugh, The Pedestrian Pocket Book: A New Suburban Design Strategy (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1989); William Fulton, New Urbanism: Hope or Hype for American Communities? (Washington, D.C.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1996); Anton Nelessen, Visions of a New American Dream (American Planning Association, 1994); David Mohney and Keller Easterling, eds., Seaside: Making a Town in America (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991); Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994).

  13 Elizabeth Plater-Zyberg, in an interview with David Mohney, in Mohney and Keller Easterling, eds., Seaside, p. 79.

  14 Andres Duany, in “The Seaside Debate,” ANY, 1 (July–August 1993), pp. 30–31.

  15 Duany in “Reasserting Spatial Difference,” ANY, 1, p. 23.

  16 Duany, “Coding America,” ANY, 1, p. 18

  17 See Peter Calthorpe, The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993).

  18 Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live, p. 49.

  19 Plater-Zyberg, “Five Criteria for Good Design,” ANY, 1, p. 12.

  20 Duany, in “The New Urbanism, the Newer, and the Old,” Places, 9, 2 (Summer 1994), p. 92.

  21 Plater-Zyberg, quoted in Mike Clary, “A Disney You Can Go Home To,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1996, A-16.

  22 The inclusion of parks and open spaces in central areas of Celebration and the large tracts of preserved wetlands make it difficult to interpret any estimate of overall density. The town’s most dense single-home district, in Lake Evalyn, is about 7 units to the acre. The downtown apartments reach about 15 units to the acre. (Manhattan density is about 100, and central Paris is 380).

  23 Although he had trained in the crucible of postmodernism in the late 1960s, and had cut his teeth on the opposition to the minimalist moderns, Stern’s own approach to historical style quickly went beyond a witty flirtation and became a full-blown embrace. Postmodern iconoclasts like Moore and Venturi preserved an ironic distance between the old and the new. Whether in his renovations or new designs, Stern began to interpret the past literally, often identifying precisely with its ornate spirit. As a result, much of his work intersected with the ethos of the preservationist. More than any other signature architect, he would be an effective bridge between historicist postmodernism and the New Urbanism, as his commission for the Celebration master plan amply displayed.

  24 Lawrence Lebowitz, “Disney Plans a Celebration of Life, Work, Play in Osceola,” Orlando Sentinel, April 30, 1991, A-1, 4.

  25 “Development Order,” March 1994, Celebration Development of Regional Impact, Osceola County.

  26 “Amended Development Order,” December 1997, Celebration Development of Regional Impact, Osceola County.

  27 “Jorge and Mimi Move to Celebration,” Front Porch, 3 (September 1, 1997).

  28 “Several American Landscapes,” in Landscapes: Selected Writings of J. B. Jackson, edited by Ervin Zube (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970).

  CHAPTER 5

  1 Greg Dawson, “Did (the) Butler Do It to Fool Everybody?” Orlando Sentinel, April, 23, 1997, C1.

  2 Brent Herrington, Town Hall newsletter, November 1997.

  3 Michael Pollan, “Town-Building Is No Mickey Mouse Operation,” New York Times Magazine, December 14, 1997, pp. 56ff.

  4 Jeff Truesdell, “Out at the Mouse,” Orlando Weekly, June 4–10, 1998, pp. 12–13.

  CHAPTER 6

  1 The title “Teaching Academy” was taken off the building in the summer of 1998. It is now known as 851 Celebration Avenue, and is used by Stetson to teach master’s programs. It will eventually house Osceola school district’s professional development program.

  2 Promotional material for the school included a suggested reading list: Collaborative Learning, by Kenneth Bruffee; The Handbook of Effective Teaching and Assessment Strategies, by Anthony Dallmann-Jones and the Black River Group; Multiple Intelligences, by Howard Gardner; The Quality School, by William Glasser; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; Soar With Your Strengths, by Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson; and Horace’s School, Horace’s Compromise, and Horace’s Hope, all by Theodore Sizer.

  3 Starting hourly wages at Universal, Disney, and Sea World are, respectively, $5.67, $5.95, and $5.80. After 5 years, Disney’s wage rises to $10.07, guaranteed by union contract and based solely on seniority. Raises at the other two—$9.15, after 9 years at Universal, and $8.76, after 8 years at Sea World—are based on a “merit” system of pay for performance given at the supervisor’s discretion. Disney workers also outstrip the others in paid sick leave, bereavement leave, fair disciplinary procedures, and overtime opportunities. For workers’ own estimates of wage and benefit comparisons, see the May 1998 issue of “What the *#?!” A Publication for Central Florida’s Tourism Workers, at www.what-the.org/may1998. In the November 1998 issue, the editors also point out that “the Big 3 watch one another closely and form an unofficial cartel that keeps wages low,” and that these starting wages have been stagnant for more than five years now.”

  4 For broad document
ation of this campaign, see David Berliner and Bruce Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1995).

  5 Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 207.

  6 “A Report Card on the Condition of Public Education in the 50 States,” Education Week, XXVII (January 8, 1998).

  CHAPTER 7

  1 Steve Stecklow, “Disney’s Model School: No Cause to Celebrate,” Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1997, A-1.

  2 “Meet the People of Celebration,” MSNBC online, November 1, 1996.

  3 Steve Farkas, Different Drummers: How Teachers of Education View Public Education (New York: Public Agenda, 1997).

  4 “From THEIR Perspective: Notes from a Conversation with Concerned Students” (circulated document).

  5 Holly Kurtz, “Changes for Celebration School?” Orlando Sentinel, January 25, 1999.

  CHAPTER 8

  1 Edward Erikson Jr., “The Color of Money,” Orlando Weekly, September 18–24, 1997, pp. 8–12; and “Green Gamble,” Orlando Weekly, November 20–26, 1997, p. 8.

  2 Katherine Bouma, “A True Horror Story, Pesticides’ Effects on Hormones,” Orlando Sentinel, February 1, 1998, A-1; and “Lack of Baby Alligators Troubles Scientists,” Orlando Sentinel, March 31, 1998, A-1, 4.

  3 L. J. Guillette Jr., T. S. Gross, G. R. Masson, J. M. Matter, H. F. Percival, and A. R. Woodward, “Developmental Abnormalities of the Gonad and Abnormal Sex Hormone Concentrations in Juvenile Alligators from Contaminated and Control Lakes in Florida,” Environmental Health Perspectives, 102 (1994), pp. 680–88; L. J. Guillette Jr., D. B. Pickford, D. A. Crain, A. A. Rooney, and H. F. Percival, “Reduction in Penis Size and Plasma Testosterone Concentrations in Juvenile Alligators Living in a Contaminated Environment,” General Comparative Endocrinology, 101 (1996), pp. 32–42; P. M. Vonier, D. A. Crain, J. A. McLachlan, L. J. Guillette Jr., and S. F. Arnold, “Interaction of Environmental Contaminants with the Estrogen and Progesterone Receptors from the Oviduct of the American Alligator,” Environmental Health Perspectives, 104 (1996), pp. 1318–22.

  4 Proposal for the Celebration Learning Center: A Center for the Best Educational Practices for the 21st Century, p. 103. I am grateful to Professor Rosen for allowing me to view this document.

  5 Alfie Kohn, “Only for My Kid: How Privileged Parents Undermine School Reform,” Phi Delta Kappan, 98, 8 (April 1998), pp. 569–77.

  6 Louis Gerstner Jr., Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public Schools (New York: Penguin, 1994); RJR Nabisco Foundation, Next Century Schools (Washington, D.C.: RJR Nabisco Foundation, 1989).

  7 Alex Molnar, Giving Kids the Business: The Commercialization of America’s Schools (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), p. 3.

  8 An influential 1991 report issued by the U.S. Dept. of Labor outlined workplace-related skills that all students should know. SCANS, “What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000,” (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, June 1991).

  9 Andres Duany, “Coding America,” ANY, 1 (July–August 1993), p. 19.

  10 Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. 19.

  11 Molnar, Giving Kids the Business, chap. 2.

  CHAPTER 9

  1 Douglas Frantz, “Town That Disney Built is Hit by First Violent Crime,” New York Times, August 13, 1998, A10.

  2 Lenny Savino, “Father Calls Pond a Danger: Fears More Drivers Will Die at the Site,” Osceola Sentinel, November 22, 1998, p. 1.

  3 Another anomaly, pointed out to me by Brent Herrington, is that any industry analysis of Celebration’s price points and housing mix would have predicted a population with predominantly high school–age kids. The high number of families with younger children presented a challenge to the school’s capacity to accommodate the new residents. Celebration School would soon be full, and the district would not be in a hurry to build another school on site. As a result, there was concern that, after a certain point, TCC may not be able to guarantee enrollment to the children of incoming residents.

  4 In The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer (New York: Basic Books, 1998), Juliet Schor argues that almost a fifth of all Americans made a voluntary lifestyle change in the first half of the 1990s. Another 12 percent were involuntarily downshifted. Both groups, she found, were happier as a result of leaving their demanding jobs and stressed-out lives.

  5 Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (1928), in I Love Myself When I Am Laughing: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader, edited by Alice Walker (New York: Feminist Press, 1979), p. 152.

  6 Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1961), p. 486. A critical mass of studies and novels in this period helped to produce what Gans called the “myth of suburbia,” as a conformist and soulless wasteland. The better known include William Whyte, The Organization Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956); John Keats, The Crack in the Picture Window (Boston, 1956); Eric Hodgins, Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956); Jean Kerr, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957); Richard Gordon, Katherine Gordon, and Max Gunther, The Split-Level Trap (New York, Random House, 1962); David Riesman (with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney), The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950); John Seeley, Crestwood Heights (New York: Basic Books, 1956). Aside from The Levittowners, the first books to dispute this consensus view of suburbia included Bennett Berger, Working-Class Suburb: A Study of Auto Workers in Suburbia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960); and William Dobriner, ed., Class in Suburbia (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963). More recent literature in this debate includes Barbara M. Kelly, ed., Suburbia Re-Examined (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989); John Palen, ed., The Suburbs (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995); and Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991).

  7 Herbert Gans, The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community (New York: Pantheon, 1967).

  CHAPTER 10

  1 Garden Cities literature includes Ebenezer Howard, Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London, 1898); Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice (London, 1911); Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1977); Daniel Schaffer, Garden Cities for America: The Radburn Experience (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982); Clarence Stein, Towards New Towns for America (New York: 1951); Henry Wright, Rehousing Urban America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935); Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1938); Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934). Jane Jacobs blasts away at the Garden City tradition in The Death and Life of Great Cities.

  2 Evan MacKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of the Residential Private Court (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

  3 MacKenzie points out that, for large developers, the common-interest development was an efficient and profitable solution to the rising cost of land in the late 1970s, and the growing demand for common amenities like golf courses, swimming pools, and recreational areas. More residents could be squeezed onto smaller lots, common open space would be an attractive feature of the consumer package, restrictive covenants could be drawn up to favor the lender and the developer, and professional community managers would be employed to mediate any conflicts between uppity residents and the developers themselves.

  4 Edward Blakeley and Mary Gail Snyder, Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997).

  5 Quoted in Richard Schickel, The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney (New York: Simon & Schuster: 1968), p. 158.

  6 Dolor
es Hayden, Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1780–1975 (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1976); Arthur Bestor Jr., Backwoods Utopias (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950); Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America (New York: Dover, 1966); Y. Ovel, Two Hundred Years of American Communes (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1988).

  7 Along the way, Florida even played host to at least one version of the old-style utopia—in the settlement of Estero, a community founded near Fort Myers in 1900 in accordance with the pseudoscientific teachings of Cyrus R. Teed, a cultish patriarch who called himself Koresh long before his contemporary namesake from Waco, Texas. Teed believed that the Earth was a hollow sphere with the sun in its center, and the community was architecturally drawn up to demonstrate this belief.

  8 Founded in 1973 when developers were still wary of the risk inherent in residents’ representation on the boards of homeowners associations, the Community Association Institute was initially conceived as a pluralistic national forum for reconciling the potentially adversarial interests of its members. These were to include not only property managers, developers, and association professionals (lawyers and landscapers), but also association members, presidents, and public officials. Their deliberations, after all, were to have a major impact on public housing policy in the absence of any formal government policies. McKenzie describes how the Institute evolved, over time, into a typical trade association, lobbying for the interests of its professional membership rather than serving as the quasi–public interest group it had once been. Homeowners, participating on a voluntary, unpaid basis, inevitably became “passive observers,” and, after 1992, the governing board no longer included public officials. Herrington acknowledged that he and a number of other “up and comers” had been influenced by MacKenzie’s book, and, in response to its “harsh” characterization, had been pushing for “a reemergence of the homeowner and resident perspective” by involving the organization more at the local level and moving it away from its focus on the legal and technical disputes generated by homeowners associations.