A Celebration of Homogeny

Today I would like to talk about a phenomenon: the idealogical metropolis that is Celebration, Florida. "A safe town you can let your children roam through without worry. The closest thing to Heaven on Earth."

Think The Truman Show, minus camera crews and a giant cloud-covered ceiling, and what you're left with is a horribly pastel, deathly homogenous, corporate-run city in beachless central Florida. Granted, I was reared in Omaha, at the Eastern edge of landlocked Nebraska, bordering the muddy Missouri river, just beside bustling Council Bluffs, Iowa. But I'm proud to report, though Omaha is sprouting large tentacles of tree-barren Midwestern sprawl, its downtown has been resurrected, boasting a hip "indie" scene replete with old factory-turned loft-like apartments, eclectic non-Starbucks cafes, and a killer record label that could easily turn the NYC music industry into thick green mush.

Owned by the Walt Disney Company, Celebration was born in 1994 as a model American town, an extension of what EPCOT Center (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) was supposed to be (a "planned community built from scratch.") Walt Disney's original vision for EPCOT was that of a futuristic utopian society, to eliminate homelessness (all housing to be rented, not owned), noise (electric monorails overhead, and high speed motorways underground), and pollution (downtown to be encapsulated in a climate-controlled bubble). Unfortunately, Walt never had a chance to oversee his town-in-a-bubble, as he died well before EPCOT opened to the public in 1982. For political, social, and financial reasons (and, I'm sure, many a Disney conference room argument), EPCOT remained a gated tourist attraction, white geodesic dome and all. After all, people couldn't really live in a magic kingdom, could they? With leftover EPCOT land, Celebration emerged from a theme park (and a large corporate bank account), as a futuristic "learning resort."

I visted Celebration, FL once, with my family. Don't get me wrong, we weren't in the market for a new house, nor were we itching to indulge in the cuisine of one of downtown's "five acclaimed restaurants." Oddly fascinated by the idea of a company-owned town, and growing bored after 5 hours at Disney World (it happens, trust me), we piled in the ol' rented towncar and trekked the few miles to see what all this "new urbanist" hooplah was about. Thomas More, Renaissance visionary and martyr, coined the term "utopia" which is a pun meaning both "good place" and "no place." Incidentally, his vision lives on. In theory, I suppose this town could be utopian, but really, it just scared me. If you can hear yourself think, over the generic "soft jazz" that emanates from strategically placed speakers in the impeccibly clean downtown area, you can have your choice between 6 architectural styles for a home, a handful of schools, and very little in the transportation department (a cartoon-like trolley) if you don't own a car. All of this is accessible through The Front Porch, a Celebration-wide intranet service that connects you to others in your 96.3% white-upper-middle class pie piece. Two community associations who manage the neighborhoods, restrict what you can and can't do as a home owner, with the help of a thick binder of town "covenants" that residents must sign before moving in. Slip-n-Slide party? Forget it. Ruins the lawn. Adult swingers soiree? Heavens no! Poisons the purity of the community. Though I have no doubt, Celebration has its fair share of backyard pot smoking, extramarrital affairs, and seedy corporate extortion. Ah, but its all hidden behind the eggshell finish of the autumnal orange 3.5-bed Mediterranean-style villa, with heart-shaped pool (option 2). Though Market Street downtown has been carefully outsourced to Lexin Capital, the safe Disney-style music still wafts through the manmade lakefront and token grocery store, Goodings.

Oops, just dropped my FREE WILL back there by the elegant gated entrance.

I know, I know. If I was any more bitter, I'd be inducing peptic ulcers and rupturing stomach linings. It just felt very synthetic, empty, completely un-city-like. We've already allowed corporate America to invade our daily lives, but do we have to let it dictate our Gooding's grocery purchases, front lawn height, and local volunteering options?

But we trudged on. My sisters and I tried to expose the back edge of a wall; to find the place where stenciled outer beauty met sloppy inner construction and a faded Disney copyright stamp. But alas, we were unsuccessful. The town was real. Real bricks, real streets and real food. On a cheery note, lunch was tasty, the lakefront was a lovely place to sit while digesting, and the Celebration hotel was "delightfully charming" (boasted its website).

Towards late afternoon, our bodies grew tired from the humid air and lack of choice; the towncar waited patiently in the carefully laid out downtown parking lot. We left our newfound futuristic utopia behind, and headed back to highway 417, feeling that we'd caught a glimpse of another country, an extension of EPCOT's rather trite "World Showcase." While on the curving and unpredictable roads back to our less-than-perfect hotel in strip-mall laden Orlando, listening to non Front Porch radio, I swear I saw a drug deal in progress, which put me at ease.