>Even Ford's Greenfield Village and Rockefeller's Williamsburg -- although
>flawed -- are more real than Celebration. But have Americans come to expect --
>do they want -- only a pasteurized history at 3/4 scale?  I hope not.

I don't view Celebration as history.  I have not been there, so I don't
know exactly how Disney is marketing it.  I view it as a functional example
of New Urbanism, of urban design that reaches back to sample successful
historic development patterns.  From what I understand, Disney has created
a remarkably livable urban environment.

We abandoned those patterns for spread-out cul-de-sac ranchero villages,
now supplanted architecturally by bad pastiches of architectural elements
jumbled higgledy-piggledy in Mr. Potato Head fashion upon a prominent
garage door, all designed to enclose the maximum amount of square footage
using materials of the lowest common denominator in quality.  Is it the
buildings of Celebration that are 3/4 scale, or is it just that instead of
being spread out at .5 acre lot density, the scale of the place is more
compact, intimate, and decidedly urban as opposed to suburban?


____________________________________________
Dan Becker
Executive Director, Raleigh Historic Districts Commission

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