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

by Andrew Ross

Book Overview

"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. . .... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345417518
• ISBN13: 9780345417510
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

an engaging discussion on the American dream

Andrew Ross's, The Celebration Chronicles, is a scholarly interpretation of the neo-traditional ideal and how it manifests itself with the development of a Florida community. From the onset of the book, it appears as if Celebration is everything that the Disney executives had envisioned and everything that the residents had hoped ---- but is it?Ross, however, delays peeling back the town's veneer and instead takes us on a sight seeing tour of Celebration ---- along the way we can see palm-lined promenades, a beautiful lake, neo-traditional homes and stately designed commercial/residential buildings. The author, respectfully, gives deference to the key architectural styles ---- Anglo-Caribbean, Low Country and St Augustine. Ultimately, our travels along Market St take us to the town square and we feel somehow that Disney has delivered. Then the serious questions begin and the reader becomes privy to a host of controversies ---- shoddy home construction, the prohibitive cost to live in Celebration, conflicts over the educational agenda of the K-12 school and a questionable commitment to social and ethnic diversity. Ross's observations may reflect an intellectual detachment. But the reader will discover that the book has its share of levity and amusing anecdotes. He notes, for example, the following ---- rumors of gypsies taking up residence and a resident heard to say, "What we need are a few drunks around this town." This book is a serious study. Forewarned ---- you won't find the vanity-fair critiques so pervasive in glossy journals and travel tabloids. What you will find, though, are the author's lengthy observations that attempt to explain all the factors ---- both positive and negative ---- that impact life in the community of Celebration. Eventually the book evolves into a valuable lesson on urban history and social science. I, as a reader, found the process of getting to this eventuality fulfilling and I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in these topics.

Fun and intelligent book!

A wonderful book, I just finished reading this it and it was not only humorous, as it is ripe with anectodes, but it is a serious text. The author lived in Celebration for a year and interviewed countless residents and attended what seems like every meeting. He also tracked down original documents and plans for the town and interviewed Disney executives right up to Michael Eisner. This book is a political piece detailing the degree to which the Disney Co. has power in Central Florida and how residents were lured to the town under utopian pretenses that did not come true. It is discusses the New Urbanist tradition of town planning to create community and the author provokes the reader to consider to what degree the architecture impacts the personality of the town and how a management company can shape the community. The importance of the school to Celebration is discussed in depth and highlights present day issues in education for all citizens and parents, not just those in Celebration.It is well researched and well written. For anyone who has heard the soundbites on the news about Celebration and wants an insider view, buy this book.

Why this is a phenomenal book

This is an excellent portrayal of small town USA citizens and at the same time and earnest critique of Disney's capital appetite. Ross weaves these stories together to create a fascinating read.Celebrationites are a unique crew hailing from all over the country for reasons as varies as hoping the monorail system at Disneyworld could use a retired doctor as the conductor to expecting the cutting edge, progressive school to improve teenage grades and angst. Ross interviews the citizenry allowing them to tell their stories to an honest interviewer and fellow townee as opposed to their usual experience of giving five minute sound bite interviews from media folk in town for the afternoon. Celebration comes across as a town with incredible civic involvement and interesting inhabitants. Most citizen issues seem common to small neighborhoods, although some do have to do with the Disney Company and their poor construction of houses.Ross demonstrates how the Disney Co. established Celebration as an (overpriced) homestead for varied income level inhabitants and racial diversity. Unfortunately neither was accomplished and the town is largely white and upper middle class. Celebration was designed to combat the ills of the urban sprawl overtaking the central Florida region and to promote clean living, community sentiment and an alternative to the glare of franchise neon lights. Interestingly, Ross points out that at the same time the Disney Co. is daily recruiting underpaid labor from Florida's immigrant pool of Mexicans and Central Americans who are forced to squeeze into tiny apartments on the strip thus adding to the urban sprawl as well as exploited laborers.Ross relies on concrete data and solid interview to critique Disney's plans and true motivations for building celebration - 20 years worth of permits to develop their property holdings in Central Florida and continue to fortify their kingdom. An excellent book, I highly recommend it!

A gripping discussion of Celebration's early development

Andrew Ross is hardly the kind of person for whom Celebration was built. He's single, he has no children, and he's apparently an educated intellectual with an abiding love of urban life. Nonetheless, he has done a very capable, skilled job in The Celebration Chronicles. Accurate coverage of the origins and early life of Disney's town required research and synthesis of the huge number of disparate elements - for example, architecural history and Disney's plans for its corporate future - and Ross has risen to the challenge in almost every way.He does an especially good job - not surprising, for a college professor - of describing and analyzing the parents v. school war that had such an incredible influence on the town's development. Ross covers the external and internal politics, the education theory, and the human details of the school, as well as the many other, varied factors that fed into the battle. The book also displays the results of the author's wide-ranging, thorough research. Ross appears to have entered into every social circle that would have him and even a few that wouldn't. He attended every town meeting, even those where he was the only resident present. He visited many residents and talked with the full range of social groups. He even carefully documented every rumor that blossomed on the flourishing town grapevine - that chapter makes for humorous reading indeed. All of Ross's research means that this book provides a very clear picture of the range and diversity of the residents and their lives in Celebration.The book does founder a bit in the places where Ross's own leanings become too clear. His opinions - which, I'm grateful to say, are generally quarrantined in their own sections and chapters - about the town's issues are just what you'd expect from a hugely liberal educator without children. In the famed school battle, for example, his sympathy and empathy is all for the teachers and the lost innovative instruction paradigm. He appears totally incapable of understanding the parents' viewpoints, so his personal opinion is unbalanced.Overall, though, this is a well-balanced, well-written, well-researched book. Considering the depth and complexity of the topic, this is an astounding work. Absolutely worth reading and owning, even if you'd never in your life consider residing in a place like Celebration.