The Celebration Chronicles : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's New Town

by Andrew Ross

"Planned with impeccably correct intentions, built with improperly low-wage labor, and sold on the basis of improbably lavish guarantees, Celebration would be put to the test time and time again. . . . True to the ethos of the blockbuster box-office hit, would this town deliver on the promise of its business plan or its community plan? Or would it sidestep all expectations and play by a different script?"

Scholar and iconoclast Andrew Ross set out to answer these questions by spending a year living in the much scrutinized, and often demonized, Celebration--the picture-perfect town that Disney is building for 20,000 people in the swamp and scrub of central Florida. Lavishly planned with a downtown center and newly-minted antique homes, and front-loaded with an ultra-progressive school, hospital, and high-tech infrastructure, Celebration would be yet another fresh start in a word gone wrong. Yet behind the picket fences, gleaming facades, and "Kodak moment" streetscapes, Ross discovered genuine, complex, and often surprising truths.

In this compelling, eye-opening account, based on his personal encounters and on several hundred hours of interviews with residents, employees, and county locals, Ross records what went right and what went wrong in this latest version of the American Dream. Diverse in background, Celebration's pioneers were united by a desire to escape the cheerless isolation of suburbia and reconnect with the neighbors. They were also dazzled by the Disney brand name and expected much more than they got. The Celebration Chronicles recounts their often unruly struggles to build a community in the face of shoddy construction, typecasting by the media, Disney's skittishness about negative publicity, and friction with the working-class county of Osceola. An acute observer in the controversial school, Ross takes us to the front lines of a superheated battle of wills between educators and townspeople.

What does Celebration reveal about the state of contemporary culture? Is this model town a cause for celebration or alarm? Can we entrust the public interest to giant beneficiaries of the marketplace like Disney? One of our shrewdest social commentators, Ross brilliantly places this planned community within the context of the New Urbanist movement to combat suburban sprawl and restore public life to the nation's increasingly privatized landscape. Powerful, wide-ranging in its analysis, The Celebration Chronicles is a provocative account of the inner life of a new American town.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cultural Studies, Class, Pop Culture

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Andrew Ross is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and a social activist. A contributor to The Nation, the Village Voice, New York Times, and Artforum, he is the author of many books, including, most recently, Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City and Nice Work if You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times.

Reviews

[Malcolm]

What to make of Celebration? This Disney town in Florida is a little bit Main Street USA, a bit suburban hell, a chunk Disney-esque, and in many ways uncomfortable about all of that. Andrew Ross is a sceptical, New York cultural studies intellectual, and has used that scepticism to give us a telling insight into life in a Disney property development, and that town to show the limits of scepticism. This is one of the most surprising bits of urban or community analysis I've read, and my job means I read an awful lot of these. Most are shallow, simplistic, descriptive; Ross's ethnography (he lived in the town for a year) shows how good ethnographic investigation and a well deployed ethnographic imagination can provide deep insight and unexpected outcomes.

[Sara Mcclellan]

This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in New Urbanism, the Disney corporation, private/public community development, etc. NYU Professor Andrew Ross spends a year living in Disney's Celebration, Florida. While Ross engages in a challenging dance in writing this book for both an academic and lay-person audience, he is particularly good at drawing out and detailing social tensions (e.g. between public/private interests, differing educational and religious values, issues of class and race, etc.).

Ross does, however, become a bit bogged down (and perhaps biased) in his description of the educational battles experienced by Celebration families.

[Denise]

Excellent socio-political analysis of Celebration's formative years, written in an academic style but interspersed with personal insights. With my keen interests in urban planning and development and education policy, this book was right up my alley.

[Kimberly]

I bought this book many years ago (15?) for a class that discussed the relationship between society and architecture throughout American history, and I can't remember how much of it I read back then or what I thought of it. I was recently putting together some books to donate, and I came across it again. It piqued my interest because I am going to Disney World in a few weeks, and I thought this would be a fun and nerdy thing to read in advance of the trip. Well, books are always improved simply by reading them for pleasure instead of obligation, and I found that to be the case here. Since time has passed since its publication, the book is now delightfully dated (I especially loved the references to shopping malls being the center of commerce and social life); however, I enjoyed the wide range of topics he covered when discussing Celebration as an experiment in New Urbanism (education, democracy, citizenship, etc.). The style is fairly academic, so I understand the negative reviews from those who are picking it up expecting something else. As a book for those interested in this topic, it does not disappoint.

[Isabella Zanobini]

some parts need to be skimmed (too much detail abt the school system)
i wish the author gave us more of his personal opinions and dished a little more on his personal experiences living there
also wish there were more pictures!
BUT still a good amt of juicy takeaways, some amazing lines, captures the vibe of developments in florida

[Dan Herrera]

If you’re looking for a history of the planned town, or an overview of planned/company towns, this is not the book for you. Most of the book is a combination of an ethnography and an inside scoop on the local school board drama. There were some worthwhile portions, but wasn’t the book for me.

[Brian Kelly]

Never new Disney had built a proper town. New Urbanism is really just post modernism as far as can tell.

[Jack]

The major digression into the alternative schooling methods in the middle of the book, while compelling, kills its momentum and rendered the back third laborious. Ross includes too much information for his own good at points. 3 stars for teaching me the actual meaning of New Urbanism, the interactions with neighbors which highlight Ross's good-faith participation in the town culture, and his terrific documentation of Celebration's complicated yet sloppy management and governance practices.

[Elaine Meszaros]

We Americans like describing ourselves as pragmatic realists - capitalists who make cold, shrewd decisions based on the market and the value of a dollar stretched as thin as possible. However, conjure up visions of white picket fences, front porches, little Susie on her bike and mom making apple pie and all but the most hard-core of us will turn squishy at the knees. And there is no company on the earth to inject dreams and desires into the average Joe than the magical company of Disney. And boy do they know it. The Disney-backed planned town of Celebration has become a microcosm study of American ideals created in a made-to-order community. In the mid-90s, Disney announced with great fanfare that they would be creating a Utopic planned community on Disney property. It would have state-of-the-art schools, a perfect downtown, sidewalks and parks to reduce driving and beautiful planned architecture based on Victorian, Mediterranean and other classic styles. It would, in short, rock. Lots were snapped up for 30% above market value within no time. And then the fun began. Andrew Ross, a journalist for The Village Voice and The Nation, moved into Celebration for a year to chronicle the journey of the town. While much had been written about the town, most of it had been either wildly negative in an Orwellian vein, or glowing with pixie dust and hope.

There is something about the phrase "Utopia" that makes my skin crawl. Ross describes this perfectly in his introduction, as he describes the literature for Celebration:

[Jowy]

I lived and worked at Walt Disney World for six months in 2009 as part of their college program. I only went to Celebration once, and that was only because I took a wrong exit while trying to get somewhere else. Celebration was kind of a joke amongst cast members, mainly because it was a town built by Disney, and many assumed FOR cast members, and yet no cast members could actually afford to live there. I'll be honest, I didn't know much about Celebration other than those two basic facts. I also don't know how it stood up to the housing recession, but I'm curious.

This book was written in the late 90s about a year the author spent when the town was first built. He interviews several families, as well as attending town meetings and interviews with higher-ups, both in the town of Celebration and the Walt Disney Company.

The book is very interesting, though a bit disorganized. Topics seem to go all over the place, without having very good segues or really much of any organization at all. The book also is a bit above my comprehension level. I think some of the terminology needed to be dumbed down to an easier level to understand.

[Karen Germain]

I am willing to admit that I am a little Disney obsessed, so naturally, I had to read this book. Although Ross uses Celebration as the focus of his book, the book is really more about New Urbanism and he compares Celebration to other master planned communities in the United States. Although not a complete criticism, the book explores Celebration warts and all, heavily focusing on the poorly constructed homes and the experimental school system. The school and housing construction are the two biggest points of contention with Celebration residents. Overall, the book was interesting and despite its problems, I would still consider moving to Celebration.

[Jeff]

This is a close look at the Disney developed, new urbanist community. But before you know it, you will be looking at Celebration as a case study of modern society in America. The debates over education are fascinating and eye opening, showing how privileged helicopter parents and backwoods school board members destroyed a groundbreaking educational model.

[Thomas Freeman]

I thought this book might do a great job of showing the falacies of social experiments and the worldviews that surround them. Instead, it was boring, hard to follow and really more of a journal.

I did not like this book and finally stopped reading it.

[Kat]

Interesting read. Not something I would have chosen, but worth reading once.

[S]

C 307.76 R

[Fleming]

Dealt more with building codes and interior design options than an actual portrait of a community.

[Roberto Grassilli]

L'utopia urbanistica finanziata dalla Disney