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

by ROSS, ANDREW PHD

• ISBN13: 9780345417527
• ISBN10: 0345417526
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-09-05
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Scholar and iconoclast Andrew Ross spent a year living in the much scrutinized, and often demonized, Celebration--the picture-perfect town that Disney is building for 20,000 people in the swamp and scrub of central Florida. Lavishly planned with a downtown center and newly minted antique homes, and front-loaded with an ultraprogressive school, hospital, and high-tech infrastructure, Celebration was to offer a fresh start in a world gone wrong. Yet behind the picket fences, gleaming facades, and "Kodak moment" streetscapes, Ross discovered a real place with real problems, and not a theme park village cooked up by the Imagineers. Compelling and wide-ranging in its analysis, The Celebration Chronicles provides a startlingly fresh perspective on the link between contemporary urban planning and corporate bottom lines.

Author Biography

Andrew Ross is professor and director of the American studies program at New York University. A writer for Artforum, The Nation, The Village Voice, and many other publications, he is the author or editor of ten previous books, including Real Love, The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life, Strange Weather, and No Respect.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Homeward Bound	1	(20)
The Price of Tradition	21	(24)
The New Geewhizzery	45	(18)
Main Street Is Better Than Alright	63	(31)
Our Much-Rumored Life	94	(25)
Riders on the Storm	119	(25)
The Siege of the School	144	(22)
Oil and Water	166	(32)
It Takes a Village	198	(25)
Kinder, Gentler Government?	223	(24)
God's Houses, a Picture of Health, and the Color of Our Minds	247	(27)
Not an Island	274	(25)
Learning from Celebration	299	(27)
Notes	326