Celebration is the Solution
Though many communal experiments seem to fail, certain intentional communities established during the 20th century still exist. Among those, one, created by the Disney Company, is an experiment in community planning which has the purpose of “[setting] up a system of how to develop communities” according to Michael Eisner, chairman and chief executive of Disney from 1984 to 2005 (Frantz and Collins 8). The city of Celebration in Florida is an example of intentional community that can inspire ideal cities of the future to increase the sense of community that has almost completely disappeared. The Disney Company’s critique towards our current way of living in a community guided them to find a solution that was inspired …show more content…
Nowadays, small town life and neighbourliness have become nothing more than a memory. As Hugh Bartling, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said, “suburban spawl [is] a ‘cancerous growth’ and [is] destructive of civil life” (375). Walt Disney’s Celebration was created in order to restore a sense of community and stop the unhealthy growth of suburbs. Disney recognized the current design of the suburbs as harmful to civil life since their characteristics discourage connectivity between the neighbours. Features of current suburbs include restrictive zoning (homes, businesses, facilities, etc.), over-emphasis on automotive mobility, rarity of public open space, and isolation from one another (375-376). In modern suburbs, everything is individualised. This decreases the quality of life which became a quest for the development of utopian suburbia (383). Current society contain the negative aspects of modernity, which includes social fragmentation and public alienation (383). Those aspects are easily observable in the suburban areas. Neighbours barely talk to each other and lend each other a helping hand does not happen …show more content…
Just like Garden City, there is a town center which is surrounded by residential areas and a school. The golf clubhouse that surrounds Celebration is a greenbelt. It can be compared to the farms in a ward. This kind of design makes the town walkable since one can be living in the residential area and bring his or her child to the school campus and walk to downtown for work (New Urbanism). All essential facilities are located within an easy walking distance from each other, which reduces the use of car within the city. Celebration is not the only town that has been created following the New Urbanism worldview. The best-known examples of New Urbanism inspired developments are Seaside, Harbor Town, and Kentlands (Steuteville and Langdon). These towns all show the benefits provided by a smart design that is community-oriented. Celebration is comparable to Seaside, which was developed in the early 1980s and it was the first full-size new urbanist community. Just like Seaside, Disney’s town demonstrates that New Urbanism can revive many of the best elements of a small-town design (Steuteville and Langdon). They both apply New Urbanism’s principles of walkability, mixed housing and increased density. Those principles increase the town’s convenience and efficiency since all services are scattered all around. One of the differences is that Celebration was built on a much
Though many communal experiments seem to fail, certain intentional communities established during the 20th century still exist. Among those, one, created by the Disney Company, is an experiment in community planning which has the purpose of “[setting] up a system of how to develop communities” according to Michael Eisner, chairman and chief executive of Disney from 1984 to 2005 (Frantz and Collins 8). The city of Celebration in Florida is an example of intentional community that can inspire ideal cities of the future to increase the sense of community that has almost completely disappeared. The Disney Company’s critique towards our current way of living in a community guided them to find a solution that was inspired …show more content…
Nowadays, small town life and neighbourliness have become nothing more than a memory. As Hugh Bartling, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said, “suburban spawl [is] a ‘cancerous growth’ and [is] destructive of civil life” (375). Walt Disney’s Celebration was created in order to restore a sense of community and stop the unhealthy growth of suburbs. Disney recognized the current design of the suburbs as harmful to civil life since their characteristics discourage connectivity between the neighbours. Features of current suburbs include restrictive zoning (homes, businesses, facilities, etc.), over-emphasis on automotive mobility, rarity of public open space, and isolation from one another (375-376). In modern suburbs, everything is individualised. This decreases the quality of life which became a quest for the development of utopian suburbia (383). Current society contain the negative aspects of modernity, which includes social fragmentation and public alienation (383). Those aspects are easily observable in the suburban areas. Neighbours barely talk to each other and lend each other a helping hand does not happen …show more content…
Just like Garden City, there is a town center which is surrounded by residential areas and a school. The golf clubhouse that surrounds Celebration is a greenbelt. It can be compared to the farms in a ward. This kind of design makes the town walkable since one can be living in the residential area and bring his or her child to the school campus and walk to downtown for work (New Urbanism). All essential facilities are located within an easy walking distance from each other, which reduces the use of car within the city. Celebration is not the only town that has been created following the New Urbanism worldview. The best-known examples of New Urbanism inspired developments are Seaside, Harbor Town, and Kentlands (Steuteville and Langdon). These towns all show the benefits provided by a smart design that is community-oriented. Celebration is comparable to Seaside, which was developed in the early 1980s and it was the first full-size new urbanist community. Just like Seaside, Disney’s town demonstrates that New Urbanism can revive many of the best elements of a small-town design (Steuteville and Langdon). They both apply New Urbanism’s principles of walkability, mixed housing and increased density. Those principles increase the town’s convenience and efficiency since all services are scattered all around. One of the differences is that Celebration was built on a much