From the dream of EPCOT, to the failing reality of Celebration, Florida
December 30, 2019 1:40 PM Subscribe
Between Disneyland being the only place safe in Orange County for black tourists in the 1960s (OC Weekly, recounting the Green Book entry), to Disney's Dream called EPCOT (1970s promo film, described in an official Disney Parks blog), you might think that a Disney-built town would be a glorious, inclusive place. But that Disney dream died in Celebration (The Guardian), and Disney's community of tomorrow became a total nightmare (The Daily Beast). Rob Plays has another recounting of the history, development, and failure of the perfect town of yesteryear in Celebration Florida: Disney's Not So Perfect Town.
The Daily Beast mentions a blog, but doesn't link to it. Here's Cookie Kelly Blog, which gets into specific details of issues in Celebration, circa 2016.
For even more history and details on why Disney built Celebration, and how that perfect development failed on so many fronts, The Economist has an article titled What Disney’s city of the future, built to look like the past, says about the present (archived for broader access).
Failed Disney Vision: Integrated City -- the New York Times focuses more on racial diversity and segregation, in the context of national trends. (Archived for broader access)
More on this: Urban Planning Can’t Happen Without Black People in the Room—Yet It Does (The Root)
The Daily Beast mentions a blog, but doesn't link to it. Here's Cookie Kelly Blog, which gets into specific details of issues in Celebration, circa 2016.
For even more history and details on why Disney built Celebration, and how that perfect development failed on so many fronts, The Economist has an article titled What Disney’s city of the future, built to look like the past, says about the present (archived for broader access).
Failed Disney Vision: Integrated City -- the New York Times focuses more on racial diversity and segregation, in the context of national trends. (Archived for broader access)
More on this: Urban Planning Can’t Happen Without Black People in the Room—Yet It Does (The Root)
I live in Orlando and about the only people who move to Celebration are out-of-towners with so much Disney pixie dust in their eyes they don't see what they are getting into. I am surprised it has lasted this long.
That said, I have never even visited Celebration in the soon to be nine years I have been in Florida. It is apparently a quaint town square/shopping district to visit, but that is about it.
Even the story of the movie theater is a nightmare.
posted by Badgermann at 2:06 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
That said, I have never even visited Celebration in the soon to be nine years I have been in Florida. It is apparently a quaint town square/shopping district to visit, but that is about it.
Even the story of the movie theater is a nightmare.
posted by Badgermann at 2:06 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
By this time, the story does sound to me like the American Dream.
posted by clawsoon at 2:49 PM on December 30, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 2:49 PM on December 30, 2019 [6 favorites]
I used to visit Celebration a lot when I had work down there, but my company changed the delivery routes and I have been there maybe once in the past year. It's still a nice looking town from the outside. A couple of cute little shops in town square, a decent diner, and a nice area to stroll by the water. Yes, it's a Stepford Wives kind of atmosphere, but it's charming to visit if you don't look too close.
Would I live there? Hell no, the houses were always ridiculously overpriced, the HOA was crazy, and it's too far from Orlando. But I have a few friends who still live there, and they like it for those who work in both Tampa and Orlando.
posted by replayer at 2:56 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
Would I live there? Hell no, the houses were always ridiculously overpriced, the HOA was crazy, and it's too far from Orlando. But I have a few friends who still live there, and they like it for those who work in both Tampa and Orlando.
posted by replayer at 2:56 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
I went to EPCOT with marching band in its first-ish year, 84 or 85, when it was still only mostly-built (I want to say it was about 80% built while still being open the first year). I was all up for the IBM thing, but it was disappoint, and after the first hour or so we spent the next six hours doing laps around the circle as passengers in one of those shuttle thingys they have/had.
posted by rhizome at 3:08 PM on December 30, 2019
posted by rhizome at 3:08 PM on December 30, 2019
It's not peculiar at all that common areas are repaired by the association, not the owners. Neither the author nor some of the homeowners seem to get the rudiments of condo ownership. That's not to say a $100K assessment for a $200K condo is typical, and that board structure seems to be really hinky, but I hope people aren't routinely buying condos without understanding their potential fiscal responsibilities via assessments.
Celebration always seems like low hanging fruit for people with a passing interest in New Urbanism, but they never mention Seaside.
posted by 99_ at 3:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [9 favorites]
Celebration always seems like low hanging fruit for people with a passing interest in New Urbanism, but they never mention Seaside.
posted by 99_ at 3:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [9 favorites]
you are followed everywhere by muzak from the 40s and 50s piped out of speakers hidden beneath palm trees. Jingle Bell Rock, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Oh Come All Ye Faithful – the theme is unrelentingly Christmas.
They've managed to build my nightmare.
More seriously: at least it's an American town where the film actually shows people walking. They have sidewalks! And pedestrianized areas. It's just about the only suburb I've seen that didn't feel actively hostile to pedestrians. That's a miracle.
posted by jb at 4:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
They've managed to build my nightmare.
More seriously: at least it's an American town where the film actually shows people walking. They have sidewalks! And pedestrianized areas. It's just about the only suburb I've seen that didn't feel actively hostile to pedestrians. That's a miracle.
posted by jb at 4:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
Hm. I made an anti-Disney comment after I saw a post and many comments critical of Disney and it went away zzz
So let me just say, in this thread critical of Disney, that I support that stance, and I am also critical of Disney.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
So let me just say, in this thread critical of Disney, that I support that stance, and I am also critical of Disney.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
They still advertise the movie theater in real estate listings. As if it’s functioning, let alone undamaged.
posted by Betty_effn_White at 4:21 PM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Betty_effn_White at 4:21 PM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One comment deleted. In general please skip "lol help me pirate" stuff since that can cause problems for the site that it's easier to just avoid. It's fine to be critical of Disney.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:20 PM on December 30, 2019
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:20 PM on December 30, 2019
Ya know, I suddenly have a much deeper appreciation for the frustration POC Mefites often express. Y'all have missed the point of this post, badly. It's not about HOAs or overpriced condos. It's about White Supremacy.
Disney explicitly set out to create an integrated utopia, and they completely failed because they couldn't overcome "The trend toward racial balkanization" despite significant efforts, including a housing lottery and deliberately hiring "black workers in the sales office to help prospective black home buyers feel more comfortable."
The 2000 census numbers released this year say it all: the 2,376-resident community is 88 percent white in a county that is only 59 percent white; it is 1 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic in a county that is 6 percent black and 29 percent Hispanic.
How 'bout we talk about that a bit?
posted by Frayed Knot at 6:00 PM on December 30, 2019 [38 favorites]
Disney explicitly set out to create an integrated utopia, and they completely failed because they couldn't overcome "The trend toward racial balkanization" despite significant efforts, including a housing lottery and deliberately hiring "black workers in the sales office to help prospective black home buyers feel more comfortable."
The 2000 census numbers released this year say it all: the 2,376-resident community is 88 percent white in a county that is only 59 percent white; it is 1 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic in a county that is 6 percent black and 29 percent Hispanic.
How 'bout we talk about that a bit?
posted by Frayed Knot at 6:00 PM on December 30, 2019 [38 favorites]
I'm currently in an "intentional town" based on "New Urbanism", Seabrook, Washington.
It is so Stepford Wives feeling, with no Disney involved. But it feels really weird. And has no actual commercial infrastructure to support it. It seems to be mostly second homes being rented out for vacation fun, but there's nothing here. No grocery, just a tiny "market". Maybe two restaurants open at night. Very odd.
Can't imagine the dystopia Disney would add to such a place.
posted by Windopaene at 6:01 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
It is so Stepford Wives feeling, with no Disney involved. But it feels really weird. And has no actual commercial infrastructure to support it. It seems to be mostly second homes being rented out for vacation fun, but there's nothing here. No grocery, just a tiny "market". Maybe two restaurants open at night. Very odd.
Can't imagine the dystopia Disney would add to such a place.
posted by Windopaene at 6:01 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think there are two prongs to the horror of Celebration- one that capitalism has done it's thing, leaving residents with the problem of not being able to, say, fix a leaking roof themselves, and then being on the hook for repairs despite paying fees for such repairs over time.
The other prong (and not disassociated with capitalism, with wealth disparity) is the lack of diversity.
"At its core was nostalgia. While inner cities across America were in the grip of the crack cocaine epidemic, and middle-class Americans were fleeing to increasingly isolated and alienating suburbs, Celebration was conceived as a return to the glory days of America's pre-war small towns."
Nostalgia is a term that has positive connotations, until you start thinking about nostalgia for what time period, and what other things were happening at the time to make your reality possible. The Daily Beast calls it 'loaded nostalgia'.
"Yet it has become a gated community, just without the gates." - the economist
The NY article:
Robert Tennebaum, the real estate development director at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, who helped design Columbia, Md., a community noted for its racial diversity, said that Disney officials might have underestimated the amount of effort necessary.
In Columbia, for example, officials paid both black and white families to move into different neighborhoods to keep areas from segregating, Mr. Tennebaum said. But the overarching problem here, he said, probably had to do with the new demographic trends.
''You would have a hard time doing a Columbia today,'' he added. ''In the 1960's we were filled with idealism and even promised to create an open community before federal law required it. Some of that idealism has dissipated.''
and later on:
Tobi Santagado, who is Jewish and lives here with her two children and husband, does not call her neighbors prejudiced, but says they are too quick to associate minority people with crime and blight.
"Segregation issues" indeed.
Walkable, not car-centric, mixed use- all things that seem to be good things that are promoted for good neighbourhoods, but it's clear that capitalism can't be trusted to build such utopias.
As an educator the school is another example of 'doing things right' and experiencing failure- no grades, kids working at their ability levels, is supposed to help kids work at their potential. Interesting to see the theory worked out in practice.
(disclaimer: I'm not American nor a POC.)
posted by freethefeet at 7:32 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
The other prong (and not disassociated with capitalism, with wealth disparity) is the lack of diversity.
"At its core was nostalgia. While inner cities across America were in the grip of the crack cocaine epidemic, and middle-class Americans were fleeing to increasingly isolated and alienating suburbs, Celebration was conceived as a return to the glory days of America's pre-war small towns."
Nostalgia is a term that has positive connotations, until you start thinking about nostalgia for what time period, and what other things were happening at the time to make your reality possible. The Daily Beast calls it 'loaded nostalgia'.
"Yet it has become a gated community, just without the gates." - the economist
The NY article:
Robert Tennebaum, the real estate development director at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, who helped design Columbia, Md., a community noted for its racial diversity, said that Disney officials might have underestimated the amount of effort necessary.
In Columbia, for example, officials paid both black and white families to move into different neighborhoods to keep areas from segregating, Mr. Tennebaum said. But the overarching problem here, he said, probably had to do with the new demographic trends.
''You would have a hard time doing a Columbia today,'' he added. ''In the 1960's we were filled with idealism and even promised to create an open community before federal law required it. Some of that idealism has dissipated.''
and later on:
Tobi Santagado, who is Jewish and lives here with her two children and husband, does not call her neighbors prejudiced, but says they are too quick to associate minority people with crime and blight.
"Segregation issues" indeed.
Walkable, not car-centric, mixed use- all things that seem to be good things that are promoted for good neighbourhoods, but it's clear that capitalism can't be trusted to build such utopias.
As an educator the school is another example of 'doing things right' and experiencing failure- no grades, kids working at their ability levels, is supposed to help kids work at their potential. Interesting to see the theory worked out in practice.
(disclaimer: I'm not American nor a POC.)
posted by freethefeet at 7:32 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
Nostalgia is a term that has positive connotations
There may be a category error involved here. "Nostalgia" literally means "The pain of returning home."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [8 favorites]
There may be a category error involved here. "Nostalgia" literally means "The pain of returning home."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [8 favorites]
Hm. I made an anti-Disney comment after I saw a post and many comments critical of Disney and it went away zzz
Hi, saltysalticid! I read your comment, and I bet you’re bright enough to realize just how disingenuous (and borderline insulting to the mods and your peers) this comment of your is. Still, gotta help out a fellow MeFite in need, so check your MeMail!
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 7:41 PM on December 30, 2019 [4 favorites]
Hi, saltysalticid! I read your comment, and I bet you’re bright enough to realize just how disingenuous (and borderline insulting to the mods and your peers) this comment of your is. Still, gotta help out a fellow MeFite in need, so check your MeMail!
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 7:41 PM on December 30, 2019 [4 favorites]
There's a bake sale at the schoolhouseposted by zamboni at 7:48 PM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
And they're selling innocence
They're keeping out the deviants
To protect the residents
Of Celebration, Celebration, Florida
They're buying up nostalgia
For a time they can't remember
Down in Celebration, Florida
The problem with intentional communities in general in America is that the main way to set them up is to build condos with the concepts that make them unique embedded in the condo complex's common areas.
Easy way to build something that's completely at odds with the common paradigm for an American town, since you don't have to legislate anything at any level to get the project going. But easy come, easy go: the condo administration is sold to a vulture and the concept goes to shit. Celebration itself is a nice enough town, and physically speaking it had nothing that should cause homeowners there to get into financial trouble, unlike the common sprawled out suburb. But its a condo complex and there fore doomed.
posted by ocschwar at 8:05 PM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
Easy way to build something that's completely at odds with the common paradigm for an American town, since you don't have to legislate anything at any level to get the project going. But easy come, easy go: the condo administration is sold to a vulture and the concept goes to shit. Celebration itself is a nice enough town, and physically speaking it had nothing that should cause homeowners there to get into financial trouble, unlike the common sprawled out suburb. But its a condo complex and there fore doomed.
posted by ocschwar at 8:05 PM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
How 'bout we talk about that a bit?
The overall ownership rate by Black households in Osceola County by this data is 10%. Celebration is doing marginally worse, but not by much. So it's arguable that it's not any more structurally racist than any other location in the United States, a place that is quantitatively, objectively racist when it comes to home ownership.
Any discussion of Celebration as being somehow a positive or viable response to a legacy of redlining and other forms of structural discrimination is some weird ex post facto bullshit either fabricated by New Urbanists or Disney itself. I was studying architecture and urban design when Celebration was announced. At the time it was considered a craven perversion of Seaside at best (which was in and of itself a perversion of what even DPZ were trying to do), and nothing that has transpired since has proved it otherwise.
Celebration is not the case study to use when talking about whether there were embedded, racist cultural constructs in things like New Urbanism and Christopher Alexander (let's not lose site of the fact that much of the visual language is derived from Leon and Rob Krier, at least one of whom was practically a full on national socialist sympathizer) because it's not a great example/test of most of the precepts. I don't have a strong opinion here because ultimately I don't think physical space in a stylistic way has any meaningful impact on human biases or emotions. There are plenty of structural, economic forces that shape the issues the New Urbanists were trying to address with walkable streets and tree cover, but ultimately that was the tail wagging the dog.
The issue of home ownership rate by race is pretty well studied. Black households are have almost no assets and suffer from wage discrimination, so it's structurally impossible for them to enter the home ownership market in most of the country. The only places where black home ownership is significant is places where housing is relatively cheap.
The mechanisms for resolving this are drastic and non-starters from what I've seen from liberals and such for the past 20 years - you need an accelerated mechanism for moving assets into black households so they can participate in the market in a meaningful way, or you can radically reshape (and likely devalue) the home market in most places. The two easiest ways to do that are probably reparations and/or decoupling educational funding from property taxes. The other option is a massive investment in social housing. I'm game for any of those.
Even if you could sell any of those, I'm not sure culturally we even have a model towards which we could orient ourselves. What would you pick as an exemplar of a community that's even nominally repeatable at any scale (hell, what community would you pick that's just working now, no matter how exceptional and isolated)? It's not just the dry concept of assets and income. Home ownership is an intensely personal and emotional experience - and beyond that, what any individual frames as community is even more complex. If we could completely reshape the housing market tomorrow on an economic basis, it would still be somewhat stagnant in terms of racial makeup because after education, security (well, the perception of it) is what would then be the wedge. There are times when I think that we actually shouldn't even put any energy into dealing with income and asset inequity until we reshape our cultural notion of policing and security.
posted by 99_ at 8:30 PM on December 30, 2019 [28 favorites]
The overall ownership rate by Black households in Osceola County by this data is 10%. Celebration is doing marginally worse, but not by much. So it's arguable that it's not any more structurally racist than any other location in the United States, a place that is quantitatively, objectively racist when it comes to home ownership.
Any discussion of Celebration as being somehow a positive or viable response to a legacy of redlining and other forms of structural discrimination is some weird ex post facto bullshit either fabricated by New Urbanists or Disney itself. I was studying architecture and urban design when Celebration was announced. At the time it was considered a craven perversion of Seaside at best (which was in and of itself a perversion of what even DPZ were trying to do), and nothing that has transpired since has proved it otherwise.
Celebration is not the case study to use when talking about whether there were embedded, racist cultural constructs in things like New Urbanism and Christopher Alexander (let's not lose site of the fact that much of the visual language is derived from Leon and Rob Krier, at least one of whom was practically a full on national socialist sympathizer) because it's not a great example/test of most of the precepts. I don't have a strong opinion here because ultimately I don't think physical space in a stylistic way has any meaningful impact on human biases or emotions. There are plenty of structural, economic forces that shape the issues the New Urbanists were trying to address with walkable streets and tree cover, but ultimately that was the tail wagging the dog.
The issue of home ownership rate by race is pretty well studied. Black households are have almost no assets and suffer from wage discrimination, so it's structurally impossible for them to enter the home ownership market in most of the country. The only places where black home ownership is significant is places where housing is relatively cheap.
The mechanisms for resolving this are drastic and non-starters from what I've seen from liberals and such for the past 20 years - you need an accelerated mechanism for moving assets into black households so they can participate in the market in a meaningful way, or you can radically reshape (and likely devalue) the home market in most places. The two easiest ways to do that are probably reparations and/or decoupling educational funding from property taxes. The other option is a massive investment in social housing. I'm game for any of those.
Even if you could sell any of those, I'm not sure culturally we even have a model towards which we could orient ourselves. What would you pick as an exemplar of a community that's even nominally repeatable at any scale (hell, what community would you pick that's just working now, no matter how exceptional and isolated)? It's not just the dry concept of assets and income. Home ownership is an intensely personal and emotional experience - and beyond that, what any individual frames as community is even more complex. If we could completely reshape the housing market tomorrow on an economic basis, it would still be somewhat stagnant in terms of racial makeup because after education, security (well, the perception of it) is what would then be the wedge. There are times when I think that we actually shouldn't even put any energy into dealing with income and asset inequity until we reshape our cultural notion of policing and security.
posted by 99_ at 8:30 PM on December 30, 2019 [28 favorites]
Frayed Knot Ya know, I suddenly have a much deeper appreciation for the frustration POC Mefites often express. Y'all have missed the point of this post, badly. It's not about HOAs or overpriced condos. It's about White Supremacy.
It's complicated. Yes, it's racism, but in various forms. Who would want to move into Disney's Main Street USA? Especially when it's 20% more expensive than comparable homes in the area? The racism started from there, if not well before, in addition to points raised by 99_.
Did Disney, as a person, and as a company, really promote and celebrate diversity in those past decades, up into the 1990s and beyond? Those old videos look pretty white, and mostly male. And in response to the question Was Disneyland ever segregated? on Reddit, someone sited two individuals to identify how open and diverse Disney was: Floyd Norman, the first African American animator at Disney (Salon), and Tyrus Wong, whose concept drawings were the direct inspiration for the Disney animated classic Bambi (Observer). Those are fairly limited roles and examples, not to limit their importance.
Similarly, has New Urbanism, in its drive to support diverse, vibrant communities, actively consult and coordinate with a diverse group of stakeholders, if not in design committees? I don't know, but trying to recapture or recreate old towns of the past seems contrived. Why Is New Urbanism So Gosh Darn Creepy? (Gizmodo) The writer posits that it's the lack of "weirdness and messiness" that comes from organic growth.
So who wants to move to an expensive, sanitized Disney town, which was once just part of 27,400 swampy acres of land in Florida. Instead of Walt's "experimental prototype community of tomorrow", or EPCOT, the Disney Company rushed to build something, for fear that the State of Florida would take the land back. Doesn't sound like the start of an inclusive, welcoming community.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
It's complicated. Yes, it's racism, but in various forms. Who would want to move into Disney's Main Street USA? Especially when it's 20% more expensive than comparable homes in the area? The racism started from there, if not well before, in addition to points raised by 99_.
Did Disney, as a person, and as a company, really promote and celebrate diversity in those past decades, up into the 1990s and beyond? Those old videos look pretty white, and mostly male. And in response to the question Was Disneyland ever segregated? on Reddit, someone sited two individuals to identify how open and diverse Disney was: Floyd Norman, the first African American animator at Disney (Salon), and Tyrus Wong, whose concept drawings were the direct inspiration for the Disney animated classic Bambi (Observer). Those are fairly limited roles and examples, not to limit their importance.
Similarly, has New Urbanism, in its drive to support diverse, vibrant communities, actively consult and coordinate with a diverse group of stakeholders, if not in design committees? I don't know, but trying to recapture or recreate old towns of the past seems contrived. Why Is New Urbanism So Gosh Darn Creepy? (Gizmodo) The writer posits that it's the lack of "weirdness and messiness" that comes from organic growth.
So who wants to move to an expensive, sanitized Disney town, which was once just part of 27,400 swampy acres of land in Florida. Instead of Walt's "experimental prototype community of tomorrow", or EPCOT, the Disney Company rushed to build something, for fear that the State of Florida would take the land back. Doesn't sound like the start of an inclusive, welcoming community.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:35 PM on December 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
I am also critical of Disney.
Not sure as to the particulars of the original comment and deletion, but this phrase... nth nth nth.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 10:16 PM on December 30, 2019
Not sure as to the particulars of the original comment and deletion, but this phrase... nth nth nth.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 10:16 PM on December 30, 2019
I read a mess of books about celebration back when I was in college in the late nineties, and the whole thing seemed doomed from the start, with a bunch of well-intentioned attempts at building a functioning, mixed income level town with a school employing (for the time) cutting edge educational theory, only for it to fall apart when the marketing department got involved. The low income housing (townhouses and apartments) units were greatly reduced because of worries about people willing/able to swing the cost of the detached houses not being willing to live with non-wealthy (and yeah, the blatantly obvious, but unspoken racist implications about non-white residents), and the school came under heavy criticism from parents who didn’t understand the theory at use, and the holier-than-thou reactions of the schools administration didn’t help.
So yeah, it’s not exactly shocking to see it’s falling apart even more.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:55 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
So yeah, it’s not exactly shocking to see it’s falling apart even more.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:55 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
Why Is New Urbanism So Gosh Darn Creepy? (Gizmodo) The writer posits that it's the lack of "weirdness and messiness" that comes from organic growth.
"Creepy" is a good descriptor for a lot of new urbanist developments (and that is an interesting article), but it's not unique to new urbanism. You get the same (or more) sense of creepiness in those huge, brand-new suburban tract developments, with the identical houses and cul de sacs (properly, culs de sac, but no one actually says it that way). The author is right, places like that feel much more normal once they have been lived in long enough to develop even fairly minor organic differences. With a really robust HOA in place to prevent and stamp out organic differences, though, that process is short circuited and the creepy is maintained.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:23 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
"Creepy" is a good descriptor for a lot of new urbanist developments (and that is an interesting article), but it's not unique to new urbanism. You get the same (or more) sense of creepiness in those huge, brand-new suburban tract developments, with the identical houses and cul de sacs (properly, culs de sac, but no one actually says it that way). The author is right, places like that feel much more normal once they have been lived in long enough to develop even fairly minor organic differences. With a really robust HOA in place to prevent and stamp out organic differences, though, that process is short circuited and the creepy is maintained.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:23 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
People who want to read books about Celebration from the '90s might enjoy Celebration USA: Living in Disney's Brave New Town and The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Propery Values in Disney's New Town.
And, broader but both well-written and scathing, Carl Hiaasen's, Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World
posted by box at 6:50 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
And, broader but both well-written and scathing, Carl Hiaasen's, Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World
posted by box at 6:50 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
The author is right, places like that feel much more normal once they have been lived in long enough to develop even fairly minor organic differences. None of the New Urbanism places have been around long enough to get that 2nd round of organic growth. And I love that the author posited Silverlake Los Angeles as the alternative, which is way more trendy, way more expensive, way less walkable, and generally way more static, as in there has been less new construction. A house in Celebration costs $330k, a house in Sliverlake costs $800k minimum.
I also love that he posited that Seaside seems extra creepy because it acted as the set for a movie that was creepy. Can't think of a single creepy movie set on the streets of LA. Nope, not one.
On the racial front, unfortunately I have nothing more to add than what 99_ said, other than when these New Urbanist places were being conceived, the world in the US was different in that the least amount of multifamily building in basically US history was being built. It was a single family home or nothing. So yeah, some of the battles they were fighting they won.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:30 AM on December 31, 2019
I also love that he posited that Seaside seems extra creepy because it acted as the set for a movie that was creepy. Can't think of a single creepy movie set on the streets of LA. Nope, not one.
On the racial front, unfortunately I have nothing more to add than what 99_ said, other than when these New Urbanist places were being conceived, the world in the US was different in that the least amount of multifamily building in basically US history was being built. It was a single family home or nothing. So yeah, some of the battles they were fighting they won.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:30 AM on December 31, 2019
And I love that the author posited Silverlake Los Angeles
Also comically and tangentially the neighborhood of Sliverlake also has ties to the mouse.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also comically and tangentially the neighborhood of Sliverlake also has ties to the mouse.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
I don't have a strong opinion here because ultimately I don't think physical space in a stylistic way has any meaningful impact on human biases or emotions. There are plenty of structural, economic forces that shape the issues the New Urbanists were trying to address with walkable streets and tree cover, but ultimately that was the tail wagging the dog.
I mean this is so broad to be almost meaningless, but it also seems like a huge subversion of what they were trying to accomplish. Physical space most assuredly does have impacts on general health, on cash in the bank account, etc.
I think that people pay enough to go to actual Disney parks and old European cities with median incomes far below their own homes and to constructs like Seaside to prove the 'physical space in a stylistic way has any meaningful impact on human biases or emotions' part wrong. Or to say it more basically, people will pay more to live in a pretty place. I'm not sure why architects and town planners have never gotten this message through their thick heads (even in superficial ways), but I'm not an architect or town planner.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean this is so broad to be almost meaningless, but it also seems like a huge subversion of what they were trying to accomplish. Physical space most assuredly does have impacts on general health, on cash in the bank account, etc.
I think that people pay enough to go to actual Disney parks and old European cities with median incomes far below their own homes and to constructs like Seaside to prove the 'physical space in a stylistic way has any meaningful impact on human biases or emotions' part wrong. Or to say it more basically, people will pay more to live in a pretty place. I'm not sure why architects and town planners have never gotten this message through their thick heads (even in superficial ways), but I'm not an architect or town planner.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
The first comment on that Seaside article is very interesting.
Yesterday, I drove to see a new development that is growing in the next town, which has been criticized in the national architectural press. The criticism is mainly that it is inauthentic, since the stylistic choices are based on the local "vernacular" which in itself is very much designed by architects, but 130 years ago. The weather was very bad and the place seemed a bit over-paved and windy, but all in all it was OK. Not great, but also not significantly bad. There were a lot of very good observations about the local design. And as someone who has studied early and mid-century modernism, I wonder what is more authentic: a local invented vernacular or a reproduction of Californian mid-century modernism which is wholly unsuitable for the climate here? I'm not decided on this, I would really like to discover what an architecture for our age would really look like.
Or to say it more basically, people will pay more to live in a pretty place.
This. So much this. And I wonder on an almost daily basis why this is so hard to get for developers. Because they are the main culprits in this. I won't say architects and planners are innocent, but they are confined by the assignments they get, and mostly the developers listen more to the real estate agents than the architects. You would think real estate agents would understand the value of a pretty place, but they are surprisingly clueless and more preoccupied with stuff they can numerate: type and size of kitchen, number of beds and baths, square footage, etc.
posted by mumimor at 8:13 AM on December 31, 2019
Yesterday, I drove to see a new development that is growing in the next town, which has been criticized in the national architectural press. The criticism is mainly that it is inauthentic, since the stylistic choices are based on the local "vernacular" which in itself is very much designed by architects, but 130 years ago. The weather was very bad and the place seemed a bit over-paved and windy, but all in all it was OK. Not great, but also not significantly bad. There were a lot of very good observations about the local design. And as someone who has studied early and mid-century modernism, I wonder what is more authentic: a local invented vernacular or a reproduction of Californian mid-century modernism which is wholly unsuitable for the climate here? I'm not decided on this, I would really like to discover what an architecture for our age would really look like.
Or to say it more basically, people will pay more to live in a pretty place.
This. So much this. And I wonder on an almost daily basis why this is so hard to get for developers. Because they are the main culprits in this. I won't say architects and planners are innocent, but they are confined by the assignments they get, and mostly the developers listen more to the real estate agents than the architects. You would think real estate agents would understand the value of a pretty place, but they are surprisingly clueless and more preoccupied with stuff they can numerate: type and size of kitchen, number of beds and baths, square footage, etc.
posted by mumimor at 8:13 AM on December 31, 2019
FWIW, New Urbanism doesn't have to fail. I live in a great New Urbanist neighbourhood. One secret seems to be that it didn't just have one corporate vision; a whole lot of people worked together to make it happen:
posted by clawsoon at 8:23 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
For Mr. ["tiny, perfect mayor"] Crombie's team to transform the polluted 18-hectare chunk into boulevards, small parks and homes for 10,000 people, many strange bedfellows had to get under the covers: the federal and provincial governments for funding, private owners to surrender their land, co-operative boards and forward-thinking architects had to be courted, while the old-guard, block-busting developers had to be handcuffed. To do this, Mr. Crombie introduced the controversial 45-foot height bylaw to temporarily freeze downtown development (he knew it wouldn't last) while plans for St. Lawrence were ironed out; while this created many enemies for the new city council, Mr. Crombie had "a secret."Forty years later, the developers have finally broken through the guards that Crombie put in place, and giant towers are going up in between the mid-rises. We'll see how that turns out, I guess.
"We had spent the previous few years working in these neighbourhoods and understanding [them]," he says, "and therefore we knew we had a large, extensive majority of the people with us." They also had the support of the hottest urban thinker of the era, Jane Jacobs, newly transplanted to Toronto, and a new Housing Commissioner, Michael Dennis, described by Ms. Jacobs in her final book, Dark Age Ahead (Random House, 2004) as a "genius at cutting red tape."
posted by clawsoon at 8:23 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
BTW, before WWII, the modernist architects built some truly livable modern housing estates, this is just one of them, in Berlin. I've traveled to see many of the pre-war projects in Europe, and the ones in Berlin are very lovely because they are so green. The ideas from Berlin traveled to Detroit, to inform Lafayette Park.
Just to say it shouldn't really be about the style, but more about scale and walkability and definitely landscape, including climate. To me, the style problems mostly happen when your style doesn't work with your construction technology. Vinyl siding is an offence. "Classical" arcades made of flat concrete panels are sad and cheap from day one.
posted by mumimor at 8:47 AM on December 31, 2019
Just to say it shouldn't really be about the style, but more about scale and walkability and definitely landscape, including climate. To me, the style problems mostly happen when your style doesn't work with your construction technology. Vinyl siding is an offence. "Classical" arcades made of flat concrete panels are sad and cheap from day one.
posted by mumimor at 8:47 AM on December 31, 2019
. You would think real estate agents would understand the value of a pretty place, but they are surprisingly clueless and more preoccupied with stuff they can numerate: type and size of kitchen, number of beds and baths, square footage, etc.
They know where the money is. The vast majority of people who want to live in a suburb want a home castle with a big TV and kitchen island and DGAF about scenery. The people I know do sacrifice beauty and walkability for MOAR SQUARE FOOTAGE.
posted by benzenedream at 10:09 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
They know where the money is. The vast majority of people who want to live in a suburb want a home castle with a big TV and kitchen island and DGAF about scenery. The people I know do sacrifice beauty and walkability for MOAR SQUARE FOOTAGE.
posted by benzenedream at 10:09 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
Or to say it more basically, people will pay more to live in a pretty place.
Absolutely, but taste is culturally determined and engineered. People go to Paris because they've been told it's beautiful, and when people want to go to a place of their own volition, not because they feel like they are attaining some amount of cultural accomplishment? They go to Vegas (I've been to Paris, and I've been to Paris in Vegas. I enjoyed them both).
People also buy huge houses in the suburbs and think they are beautiful as well - and they've been told that a house with X bedrooms and 'open plan' with a 'kitchen island' will produce a ROI that is significantly better than having to think about what you like or need and making something more custom (and that is somewhat true).
Housing in the US has become a pump and dump asset class with a long time horizon (the length of your mortgage basically). The amount of baked in leverage that exists all along the chain, from the developer who has to finance the whole operation at rates that need to generate alpha for financial firms, to the homeowner who puts their mortgage interest deduction into an Excel sheet trying to squeeze out the largest possible monthly payment, is so value engineered that people implicitly accept homes that cannot outlast their mortgage, because everyone is betting that the land value appreciation will outpace the costs of maintenance (or outright demo - the westside of LA is practically pricing at land value only at this point) at turnover against investing a larger portion of the cost in materials quality at the outset.
Architects and town planners aren't the problem. Most of the time you see a long term maintenance issue or a bland, repetitive design decision, that was a decision between the owner and the contractor, or a developer who demanded costs be cut at the design stage.
posted by 99_ at 11:02 AM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
Absolutely, but taste is culturally determined and engineered. People go to Paris because they've been told it's beautiful, and when people want to go to a place of their own volition, not because they feel like they are attaining some amount of cultural accomplishment? They go to Vegas (I've been to Paris, and I've been to Paris in Vegas. I enjoyed them both).
People also buy huge houses in the suburbs and think they are beautiful as well - and they've been told that a house with X bedrooms and 'open plan' with a 'kitchen island' will produce a ROI that is significantly better than having to think about what you like or need and making something more custom (and that is somewhat true).
Housing in the US has become a pump and dump asset class with a long time horizon (the length of your mortgage basically). The amount of baked in leverage that exists all along the chain, from the developer who has to finance the whole operation at rates that need to generate alpha for financial firms, to the homeowner who puts their mortgage interest deduction into an Excel sheet trying to squeeze out the largest possible monthly payment, is so value engineered that people implicitly accept homes that cannot outlast their mortgage, because everyone is betting that the land value appreciation will outpace the costs of maintenance (or outright demo - the westside of LA is practically pricing at land value only at this point) at turnover against investing a larger portion of the cost in materials quality at the outset.
Architects and town planners aren't the problem. Most of the time you see a long term maintenance issue or a bland, repetitive design decision, that was a decision between the owner and the contractor, or a developer who demanded costs be cut at the design stage.
posted by 99_ at 11:02 AM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
The vast majority of people who want to live in a suburb want a home castle with a big TV and kitchen island and DGAF about scenery.
I know, and then they are sadly surprised when their sad home loses its value. Because outside of boom times, location is more important than size, and part of "location" is the planning qualities of your area.
posted by mumimor at 11:06 AM on December 31, 2019
I know, and then they are sadly surprised when their sad home loses its value. Because outside of boom times, location is more important than size, and part of "location" is the planning qualities of your area.
posted by mumimor at 11:06 AM on December 31, 2019
They know where the money is. The vast majority of people who want to live in a suburb want a home castle with a big TV and kitchen island and DGAF about scenery. The people I know do sacrifice beauty and walkability for MOAR SQUARE FOOTAGE.I might phrase this in a way which isn't so directly accusatory: nobody making that decision lives in a vacuum — they're a century in to a coordinated campaign selling that lifestyle and pushing the idea that you should drive any distance longer than the average driveway. This combines a number of powerful forces: racism drove the growth of suburbs and fuels things like the bet-your-life-on-it importance of sending your kids to the
1. This was quite eye-opening to see when we moved to DC: all of the white-flight suburbs are immediately recognizable for having no sidewalks, tons of cul-de-sacs, and transit meaning a long walk in the street to a bus route which runs once an hour. I grew up in California suburbs which were far from perfect but there were at least sidewalks almost everywhere and it was much safer to ride a bike.
posted by adamsc at 2:47 PM on December 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
People go to Paris because they've been told it's beautiful, and when people want to go to a place of their own volition, not because they feel like they are attaining some amount of cultural accomplishment?
Oh please.
Housing in the US has become a pump and dump asset class with a long time horizon (the length of your mortgage basically).
Double oh please. So tell us what is the length of the 'mortgage'? Also this is a quibble, but 'pump and dump' basically requires a really short time frame.
I might phrase this in a way which isn't so directly accusatory: nobody making that decision lives in a vacuum — they're a century in to a coordinated campaign selling that lifestyle and pushing the idea that you should drive any distance longer than the average driveway.
I would phrase it in a different way and say that people have NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. Why do you think Disney had to create AN ENTIRE NEW TOWN to change some street widths and build a quaint downtown?
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2020
Oh please.
Housing in the US has become a pump and dump asset class with a long time horizon (the length of your mortgage basically).
Double oh please. So tell us what is the length of the 'mortgage'? Also this is a quibble, but 'pump and dump' basically requires a really short time frame.
I might phrase this in a way which isn't so directly accusatory: nobody making that decision lives in a vacuum — they're a century in to a coordinated campaign selling that lifestyle and pushing the idea that you should drive any distance longer than the average driveway.
I would phrase it in a different way and say that people have NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. Why do you think Disney had to create AN ENTIRE NEW TOWN to change some street widths and build a quaint downtown?
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2020
Double oh please. So tell us what is the length of the 'mortgage'? Also this is a quibble, but 'pump and dump' basically requires a really short time frame.
For the pink sheets, sure, but there are plenty of examples of investments with longer time horizons and just as vaporous bases (WeWork, et al) -- the common factor is that the asset is overvalued and like any good pyramid scheme, the goal is getting the next person buying to believe it will continue to be traded in a liquid market at a higher price regardless of any underlying fundamental analysis.
The 2007 crisis was basically the financial markets levering up a stable asset class predicated on an absurd assumption (that American home prices had never declined so therefore would not - if you've never read anything in detail about CDOs, understand that their modeling was projecting continued appreciation regardless of how overheated the market got; many people were craven manipulators, but a lot of people were just flat out stupid because they believed they had stumbled into El Dorado - no matter how fractured and complex the securitization got, home prices just kept going up and everyone was printing money).
When mortgage rates were higher, that kept the lid on how much a home could appreciate, so most people investing in it viewed it as stable, low return hedge - a place to live, security, stability, etc. And they expected a higher quality product - some of that was also the consequence of building practices and a labor market that enabled much higher quality (to say nothing about how this was also a very effective mechanism to reproduce segregationist practices).
Houses now are garbage. Sure, they have expensive cabinets and some nice faucets and tile, thanks to advances in manufacturing. But the things that need to be durable in a house? That's engineered down to the finest possible margin. If you buy from KB Homes today, in 25 years, your house is, by design, going to be trash.
The link that generated the FPP is about how a massive development built by a company known for being fastidious in its physical plant is suffering a ton of maintenance issues barely 20 years after it was built. How is this hard to accept as an argument?
posted by 99_ at 8:57 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
For the pink sheets, sure, but there are plenty of examples of investments with longer time horizons and just as vaporous bases (WeWork, et al) -- the common factor is that the asset is overvalued and like any good pyramid scheme, the goal is getting the next person buying to believe it will continue to be traded in a liquid market at a higher price regardless of any underlying fundamental analysis.
The 2007 crisis was basically the financial markets levering up a stable asset class predicated on an absurd assumption (that American home prices had never declined so therefore would not - if you've never read anything in detail about CDOs, understand that their modeling was projecting continued appreciation regardless of how overheated the market got; many people were craven manipulators, but a lot of people were just flat out stupid because they believed they had stumbled into El Dorado - no matter how fractured and complex the securitization got, home prices just kept going up and everyone was printing money).
When mortgage rates were higher, that kept the lid on how much a home could appreciate, so most people investing in it viewed it as stable, low return hedge - a place to live, security, stability, etc. And they expected a higher quality product - some of that was also the consequence of building practices and a labor market that enabled much higher quality (to say nothing about how this was also a very effective mechanism to reproduce segregationist practices).
Houses now are garbage. Sure, they have expensive cabinets and some nice faucets and tile, thanks to advances in manufacturing. But the things that need to be durable in a house? That's engineered down to the finest possible margin. If you buy from KB Homes today, in 25 years, your house is, by design, going to be trash.
The link that generated the FPP is about how a massive development built by a company known for being fastidious in its physical plant is suffering a ton of maintenance issues barely 20 years after it was built. How is this hard to accept as an argument?
posted by 99_ at 8:57 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
I don't know. I think of Disney as being far more concerned with appearance rather than reality. That's not exactly what I'd be looking for in a company building a house I'm going to buy. Perhaps Disney is known for being fastidious about maintaining it's physical plant in it's parks. Disney owns Disneyland or Disneyworld or Disneywhatever and in order to keep the money coming in they have to maintain their parks. Disney had no incentive to maintain Celebration once they'd sold the houses, even when they still owned the city center. More generally I think the magic of branding is the only reason that people would trust a company whose primary businesses are running theme parks, producing media, and managing IP to build homes or create community especially if they're trying to do something even a smidgen out of the ordinary.
posted by rdr at 4:18 AM on January 3, 2020
posted by rdr at 4:18 AM on January 3, 2020
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posted by filthy light thief at 1:54 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]