FROM: It's All in a Nametag Published Thursdays
Celebration, Florida
For some, the Disney-designed town of Celebration, Florida, is charming; for others, it's creepy. Benson Myers takes no sides and instead presents a short history of Disney's perfect little town. With nametags, of course!
In 1966, Walt Disney announced to the world what become known as the Florida Project.
He said of it:
"Here in Florida, we have something special we never enjoyed at Disneyland... the blessing of size. There's enough land here to hold all the ideas and plans we can possibly imagine."
Walt's City of Tomorrow: EPCOT?
Walt's plans for the Florida property also included what he termed the 'Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow', or EPCOT. Regarding EPCOT, Walt said:
"The most exciting and by far the most important part of our Florida Project - in fact, the heart of everything we'll be doing in Disney World - will be our Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow! We call it EPCOT.
"It's like the city of tomorrow ought to be. A city that caters to the people as a service function. It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural, and educational opportunities.
"EPCOT will be an experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise."
This same concept played a key role in the Carousel of Progress, the attraction Walt Disney created for the 1964 World's Fair. Here the concept was called Progress City. It was idealized as a utopian community, planned and controlled to make the lives of its citizenss as clean and orderly as possible.
Walt Disney's plans for EPCOT did not come out exactly as he envisioned.
Instead a theme park, called Epcot Center, was built to showcase some of Walt's ideas and technologies. However, in the mid 1980s, The Walt Disney Company at last began plans to build the type of community that Walt had wanted.
Walt Disney announces the Florida Project
Nametag: Disney Development Company nametag.
Nametag worn by employees of Celebration, Florida
A typical residential street in Celebration
The city center in Celebration
A screenshot from the movie Pleasantville
A new subsidiary company, called the Disney Development Company, was created to plan and design the community, and to acquire the necessary resources to create it.
Walt's City of Tomorrow: Celebration!
A site for the new community was selected about four miles south of the Magic Kingdom theme park, along Interstate Highway 4 and World Drive. Christened 'Celebration', the new city was planned down to the smallest detail. The DDC commissioned many famous architects to design the layout of the city, as well as many of the homes and apartments built there.
In a promotional brochure, Disney touted:
"Celebration takes the best of what made small towns great in our past and adds a vision of the future. All the conveniences and technology of modern life will be hidden in timeless architecture. There will also be a sense of community. Hence, the lakeside town center, complete with town hall, post office, library, deli, restaurants, bookstore-cafe, grocery store, dry cleaner, and movie theater. It is meant to be a sociable place, with people living above the shops and streets designed for pedestrians. In addition, the town will have a Health Campus with a fitness center and healthcare edutainment."
Since it was established, Celebration has gained a rather mysterious reputation.
The social engineering that Disney built into the community governs every aspect of its appearance and daily operation. Residents who purchase homes in Celebration are required to sign covenants that regulate many details of what can and cannot happen on their property. Zoning laws strictly regulate which styles of homes can be built. Potential residents are given a lavish presentation about life in Celebration, and they must choose their home from a catalog of 84 Disney-approved styles. Houses must be equidistant from the streets, and the fences on properties must be one of six styles pre-chosen by Disney. Cars can't be parked in the owner's driveway for more than 24 consecutive hours, but have to be inside the garage so that they can't be seen from the street. Garbage cans are hidden from sight in alleyways behind houses.
The school system in Celebration is different from traditional schools in Florida. Celebration schools enroll students from Kindergarten through 12th grade and use a progressive curriculum that dispenses with the traditional 'A-F' grading system. Some parents don't approve of this approach, and have chosen to enroll their children in schools outside of Celebration.
Celebration lacks many of the other details ubiquitous in other American towns and cities.
It has no cemetery, no court house, no churches. It does have a City Hall, but even that is different from what you would expect. The downtown area seems strangely out of proportion with the rest of the development. While it has a small food market, cellular telephone shop, movie theatre, and jewelers, it lacks a grocery store and many of the kinds of shops that would benefit residents, such as a drug store or a dry cleaners.
Instead of a mayor, the city has a town manager, an unelected position that is filled by an appointee from Celebration's governing board, which is run by Disney.
Interestingly, after investing almost $2.5 billion into Celebration, Disney has divested most of its control over the city. In 1995, after construction of Celebration was completed, the Disney Development Company was folded into Walt Disney Imagineering. In 2004, the Disney Company sold the 16-acre town center to Lexin Capital, a private real estate investment company.
Celebration: Charm or Creep?
While Celebration may seem to be a strange and even oppressive place to live, many of its residents consider it to be ideal. The streets are kept as clean as those of any of Disney's theme parks, and crime is practically nonexistent.
With their homes in close proximity to each other, and a low population (around 3,000 people), the residents of Celebration have found what they call a "sense of community that was lacking in other communities in America".
You might be saying to yourself, "You know, life in Celebration sounds almost exactly like that movie Pleasantville." In case you haven't seen the movie, let me give you a synopsis:
"A brother and sister from the 1990s are sucked into their television set and suddenly find themselves trapped in a 1950s style television show. Here they have loving parents, old fashioned values, and an overwhelming amount of innocence and naivete. Not sure how to get home, they integrate themselves into this 'backwards' society and slowly bring some color to its black and white world. But as innocence fades, the two teens begin to wonder if their 'modern' 1990s outlook is really to be preferred over the simple and innocent way of life that Pleasantville has always known."
I guess it really all depends on what your own views and opinions are about the way you think life should be lived.
Should a person give up certain freedoms and social rights for the benefit of the community? Or should a person be free to live how and where they want, unregulated by community standards? Those are difficult questions to answer.
More: IT'S ALL IN A NAMETAG
Stuff Not to Skip
- Celebration, Florida
http://www.celebration.fl.us - Benson Myers's Blog
http://mousebadges.blogspot.com/2010/12/disney-store.html - Benson Myers's Nametag Museum
http://www.nametagmuseum.com