Celebration (Florida)

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Celebration
022306-CelebrationFL01.jpg
County and state location
Osceola County Florida Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Celebration Highlighted.svg
Basic data
Foundation : 1994
State : United States
State : Florida
County : Osceola County
Coordinates : 28 ° 19 ′  N , 81 ° 32 ′  W Coordinates: 28 ° 19 ′  N , 81 ° 32 ′  W
Time zone : Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents : 7,427 (as of 2010)
Population density : 269.1 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 27.7 km 2  (approx. 11 mi 2 ) of
which 27.6 km 2  (approx. 11 mi 2 ) is land
Height : 25 m
Postal code : 34747
Area code : +1 321,407
FIPS : 12-11285
GNIS ID : 1699772
Website : www.celebration.fl.us

Celebration is a planned city and a census-designated place (CDP) in Osceola County in the US state of Florida with 7,427 inhabitants (as of 2010). The place was realized in 1994 by The Walt Disney Company . It is located close to the Walt Disney World Resort .

geography

Celebration is located approximately 10 km west of Kissimmee and approximately 20 km south of Orlando . Interstate 4 , US Highway 192 ( SR 530 ) and Florida State Road 417 ( Central Florida GreeneWay , toll road) cross or touch the CDP .

history

Celebration was built on the site of the Walt Disney Company; the area was previously fallow.

In addition to its proximity to Walt Disney World Resort , Osceola County was also chosen for tax reasons. The urban planning maxim was to create a replica of a historic city such as Savannah , Nantucket and Charleston .

The first residents came in 1996. Residents have no discounts with the Walt Disney Company. Your life is regulated by a 70-page “sample book”. The school system is also controlled by the Disney group. In 2004 the city center was sold by the Disney group to a private real estate investor from New York. In 2008 the financial crisis hit the community, which at that time still had 11,000 inhabitants. In the first half of 2010, 106 families were forced to dispose of their homes. The local cinema had to close.

Demographic data

According to the 2010 census, the then 7,427 inhabitants were distributed over 4,086 households. The population density was 269.1 inh / km². 91.0% of the population identified themselves as whites , 1.5% as African American , 0.2% as Indians and 3.2% as Asian Americans . 1.7% said they belonged to another ethnic group and 2.2% to several ethnic groups. 11.2% of the population was made up of Hispanics or Latinos .

In 2010 children under 18 years of age and 17.7% of all households lived in 36.6% of all households with persons at least 65 years of age. 71.5% of the households were family households (consisting of married couples with or without offspring or a parent with offspring). The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.08.

27.7% of the population were younger than 20 years old, 23.6% were 20 to 39 years old, 32.4% were 40 to 59 years old, and 16.3% were at least 60 years old. The mean age was 39 years. 47.6% of the population were male and 52.4% were female.

The median annual income was $ 92,670, with 4.1% of the population living below the poverty line.

In 2000, English was the first language of 93.85% of the population, 4.30% spoke Spanish and 1.84% spoke Italian .

Architectural-historical relevance

As early as 1965, Charles Willard Moore described the original Disneyland leisure center as the “most important coherent piece of architecture of the last few decades” in the American West in an article by "Perspecta", the architecture magazine of Yale University . Above all, the car-free idyll of Main Street, USA, impressed in Los Angeles, which is completely oriented towards individual traffic, as a nostalgic counter-image of more humane urbanity. The discussion was updated with the implementation of Celebration in the sense of a New Urbanism , the influential architecture magazine Domus dedicated a special issue to Celebration in November 1996 (No. 787), the 1996 Venice Architecture Biennale presented the Disney Group's planned city prominently in the American pavilion.

Similar to Seaside , Florida (the location of The Truman Show ) or Port Grimaud (France), the Disney city offers the example of a high-tech, small-town idyll for the upper middle class and thus also documents traits of postmodernism .

Another notable structure in Celebration is an overhead line mast in the shape of a stylized Mickey Mouse .

Walt Disney's idea of ​​the perfect city

In the mid-1960s, Disney designed Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow), an (ideal) city of the future, which, however, was never realized, but only implemented as a theme park. It should not only be a planned city, but also a city controlled by the Disney corporation. At the same time, Disney's plan also meant the privatization of a large number of state tasks. The plans for Epcot envisaged a complete urban infrastructure - in economic, social and technical terms. The aim was to "create a private-sector model of the social organization of a community". In addition to the intention to control the city as an economic project by the Disney group, Disney envisaged a comprehensive regulation of the community up to regulations on clothing and behavior as well as the curtailment of the democratic rights of the inhabitants of Epcot. About Epcot, Disney said:

“It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase of American industry […]. There will be no landowners and therefore no voting control. People will rent houses instead of buying them, and at modest rentals. There will be no retirees. Everyone must be employed. One of our requirements is that the people who live in Epcot must help to keep it alive ”

Celebration as a utopian city model

Celebration revives Walt Disney's vision. Conceptually conceived as an "ideal city", Celebration is planned as a small town in the style of Main Street USA, which, according to Disney's ideas, should have a maximum of 20,000 inhabitants. There are strict guidelines for the design of the houses, from which no deviation is possible. The small town idyll should be guaranteed by optical harmony.

In contrast to the futuristic plans for Epcot, Celebration is more oriented towards the past. The city concept embodies a return to the traditional American values ​​of neighborhood and community, so there is no fencing like there is in the gated communities . The community in Celebration is extensively regulated by the Disney group, there is no democratically elected council in the form of a city parliament with a mayor, and the administrative tasks are partially privatized. Every new resident must contractually agree to accept Disney's regulations, which includes a nine-month attendance requirement. The Group also provides rules of conduct that prohibit, for example, renovations to the houses or prescribe the design of the garden and the color of the curtains.

Criticism of Celebration

In the conception of Celebration, the lack of democratic structures is fundamentally criticized, which is flanked by Disney's regulation of citizens in private by the contractually fixed rules of conduct. Claus Leggewie states: “The 'public discourse' in Celebration is just as thoroughly orchestrated as the house and garden architecture.” In addition, Frank Roost generally criticizes Disney’s efforts to subordinate an ideal city of the future with the associated community that is under the control of the group.

Sports

Just north of Celebration is the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex with a wide range of sports facilities. Here is also the MLS - franchise Orlando City home.

literature

  • Douglas Frantz, Catherine Collins: Celebration, USA: Living in Disney's Brave New Town . ISBN 0-8050-5561-4 .
  • Thomas Hüetlin: Fort Alamo of the middle class . In: Der Spiegel 5/1999, pp. 103-105.
  • Naomi Klein : No Logo The struggle of global players for market power. A game with many losers and few winners . Riemann-Verlag, 2001, 3rd edition, ISBN 3-570-50018-7 , pp. 56f, 168f.
  • Ruth Eckdish Knack: Once upon a town. Lots of hype and Disney dollars could put new urbanism on the map . In: Planning, Vol. 62, No. 3, March 1996, p. 10.
  • Michael Lassell: Celebration: The Story of a Town . ISBN 0-7868-5405-7 .
  • Claus Leggewie: Celebration - A city utopia from the day before yesterday . I: Kursbuch, No. 131, Frankfurt am Main 1998, pp. 119–128. ISBN 3-87134-131-2 .
  • Alex Marshall, How cities work - Text A tale of two towns - pp. 1–39. ISBN 0-292-75240-7 .
  • Caroline E. Mayer: The Mickey House Club - The Washington Post, Nov. 15, 1996, Pg. A01.
  • Thomas Mördinger: Celebration City. The total state in Disney's city , Vienna 1999.
  • Michael Pollan: Town-Building Is No Mickey Mouse Operation . In: New York Times Sunday Magazine, December 14, 1997, pp. 56 ff.
  • Frank Roost, The Disneyfication of Cities - Part III: Celebration: Simulation of Small Town Idylls, ISBN 381002956-4 .
  • Andrew Ross: The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney's New Town . ISBN 0-345-41752-6 .
  • Jürgen Schäfer: Living like with Mickey Mouse . In: Zeit-Magazin No. 31 of July 26, 1996, p. 10ff.
  • Robert Schediwy: City images - reflections on the change in architecture and urbanism . LIT Verlag Wien 2005, (especially p. 331 ff) ISBN 3-8258-7755-8 .

Web links

Commons : Celebration, Florida  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karin Seethaler: Too beautiful to be beautiful , article from July 19, 2011 in the series one day in the SPIEGEL ONLINE portal , accessed on July 19, 2011
  2. ^ Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010 . United States Census Bureau . Retrieved July 13, 2013.
  3. ↑ Language distribution 2000 . Modern Language Association . Retrieved July 13, 2013.
  4. ^ A b Roost, Frank: The Disneyfication of the cities. Major projects in the entertainment industry using the example of New York's Times Square and the Celebration housing estate in Florida, Opladen 2000, p. 77
  5. ↑ cit. after Thomas, Walt Disney - An American Original, p. 349
  6. ^ Roost, Frank: The Disneyfication of the cities. Major projects in the entertainment industry using the example of New York's Times Square and the Celebration housing estate in Florida, Opladen 2000, p. 87 ff.
  7. ↑ Hüetlin, Thomas: Fort Alamo des Mittelstands, in: Der Spiegel 5/1999, pp. 103-105, p. 104.
  8. ↑ Claus Leggewie: Celebration - A city utopia from the day before yesterday . In: Kursbuch, No. 131, Frankfurt am Main 1998, pp. 119 - 128, p. 126.
  9. ^ Roost, Frank: The Disneyfication of the cities. Major projects in the entertainment industry using the example of New York's Times Square and the Celebration housing estate in Florida, Opladen 2000, p. 72 ff. And p. 87 ff.