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

Douglas Frantz (Author), Catherine Collins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0805055606 | ISBN-13: 978-0805055603 | Publication Date: September 9, 1999 | Edition: 1st

A prize-winning reporter, his wife, and their two kids describe life in Disney's vision of the future.

In 1997, six months after the first residents had moved into Celebration, Florida-Disney's town of the future with its distinctly retro link to a longed-for past-Doug and Cathy and their two kids closed on their new home and settled down to participate in (and observe) this new venture. Their report from the trenches will surprise both Disney haters and Disney fans.

What is it like to start a new community-not a suburb or subdivision, but a town, inted to be a self-supporting community with the best of the new technologies (including the very latest in teaching techniques) and the most cherished elements in American towns that existed before the automobile turned everything into a mall? For almost two years the family lived this experiment firsthand. Their report is vivid, funny, and painful-and it tells us as much about ourselves and our hopes and dreams as it does about the daily reality of building a community from the ground up.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Celebration, Fla., is the much-ballyhooed Disney effort to build a walkable hybrid suburb near its Orlando theme park to serve as a showcase for the most cutting-edge ideas about urban planning. In 1997, journalists Frantz and Collins (Teachers: Talking Out of School) moved to Celebration with their two younger children to write an account of one year in the early life of the town. They participated fully in the community and found their neighbors willing to talk, discovering the ups and downs of Disney's well-calibrated logistics, from the pedestrian-friendly town plan to the housing standards and innovative K-12 school. Among the complications were the bewildering array of pedagogical strategies adopted by the school, which drove families away; the homogenous town population, which was almost entirely white and middle class; and the proliferation of rules (residents are forbidden, for example, to park recreational vehicles on the street and to complain about the mosquitoes). But the authors avoid excoriating Disney and its developers, emphasizing that the town still offered a promising model for a "better" kind of American community: they found it "a lovely place physically," whose design did indeed foster a neighborliness lacking in most of suburban America. Readers may wish that the authors had investigated their Disneyphile neighbors more closelyAe.g., only at the book's end is it revealed that almost none of their houses have bookshelves. Nonetheless, this even-handed and thorough account of one family's experience in helping to build a new community from the ground up taps provocatively into a pioneering spirit in American life. (Sept.) FYI: In October, Ballantine will publish The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Values by the cultural critic Andrew Ross, who also spent a year living in Celebration.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 1997, New York Times staffer Frantz and wife Collins did a brave thing: they moved into Celebration, FL, created by Disney to serve as a model town of the future by drawing on the best of the past. Something for both Disney fans and bashers.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (September 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805055606
• ISBN-13: 978-0805055603
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #464,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Lanchester is the author of the novels The Debt to Pleasure, Mr. Phillips, and Fragrant Harbor; and a memoir, Family Romance. He is a contributing editor at the London Review of Books and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Observer, and The Daily Telegraph, among others. Among several other prizes, including the Whitbread and Hawthornden Awards, Lanchester was awarded the 2008 E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars well written, but not too deep, October 17, 2000

By 

david rudakewich - See all my reviews

This review is from: Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town (Paperback)

Earlier this year, i was going to be in Orlando for a conference and wanted to visit Celebration as i have an interest, both personal and professional, in urban design. I read Celebration, U.S.A. before i went. I think that my visit was enriched by having read this book before i went.

I found the book provides an interesting and useful introduction to Celebration and New Urbanism. Frantz and Collins provide an narrative history of the development of Celebration as well as an interesting introduction to New Urbanism, etc. We experience alot from the personal leve. They write very well and the book moves readily along. They describe numerous problems with Celebration as well as how the expectations of many residents shaped their reaction to Celebration. It is a fairly fun book, though a little too upbeat at times.

On the other hand, the depth of analysis isn't there and, given the market that this book is directed at, probably wasn't intended to be there.

As an introduction to Celebration and an alternative approach to urban design, this book is worth it. Just don't expect too much.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy contribution to the literature of urban planning, October 9, 1999

By 

Kelly Monaghan "intrepidtraveler.com" (Branford, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town (Hardcover)

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.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only a Mild Celebration, December 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town (Hardcover)

I live in a master-planned community, so I have some experience with many of the seemingly strange rules and regulations described in the book. I'm also fascinated with new urbanism, so I was very excited when I found out about this book. It's higly readable, but there are some awkward places where the authors repeat each other. More troubling, I never got the sense that they went much beyond the perceptions and needs of their immediate family and neighbors. For two supposedly objective journalists, their particular opinions on the Celebration school spoke more of their own biases than anything else. Did anyone else feel like they were more concerned with their own property values than documenting the year or two in Celebration? For a much deeper and thoughtful account, read the "other" Celebration book by Andrew Ross. By the way, he mentions in his book that he tried to contact these authors, but that their editor told them not to talk to him. Interesting. Knowing that the various authors were in Celebration at about the same time, and having them interview many of the same residents was surreal.