Disney has always been proud of spreading magic. The company's ethos has a lot to do with its founder: Walt Disney was a consummate perfectionist, a man who was totally committed to a vision of the perfect America of his childhood. His passion for enchantment eventually bled into the theme parks he hoped would be known as the "happiest places on earth".
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But what you might not know is that Disney hasn't just been building rollercoasters lately. The so-called "Imagineers" (the R&D side of the Walt Disney Company) have actually turned their attention to town planning in an effort to build a Disneyfied community that's the epitome of innocence. It's a utopia that almost seems too wholesome to be real. Travel all the way down to Orlando, Florida, and you can even visit it yourself.
It's open to the public and designed to be the ideal little US town. You can browse the cute shops, take a stroll around the town pond (watch out for gators), eat at the restaurants and even buy a house and live there if it suits you. This is a place where smiles abound and nothing ever goes wrong: where there's no crime, no litter, no controversy ... at least, that's what the brochures claim. The reality is different, even somewhat disturbing, if you peel away the sentimental veneer and colourful bunting.
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Or maybe that's just me. After all, I grew up a small Scottish town that
definitely wasn't the happiest place on Earth by any metric. I'm more accustomed to all the perils and pitfalls that come with this kind of environment: namely poverty, bad weather, grotty people, scowling faces, ugly buildings and a civic infrastructure that's more than a little frayed at the edges. So it's natural that someone as a cynical as me would be suspicious of this town's mawkish good cheer. But the inhabitants of Celebration, Kissimmee feel differently. They love it there. For them, it's just a nice place to live, and so what if it's a little bit Brady Bunch? More than 11,000 people have reportedly chosen to make it their home, and when Disney held a lottery in 1995 for the first 474 planned houses, nearly 5,000 people scrambled to purchase one for themselves.
The town of Celebration covers approximately 10 square miles of landscaped and meticulously-gardened swampland, the Florida Everglades. A wide promenade surrounds a picturesque lake and the main street and central square boasts an ice rink, a town hall and post office, all with a mid-19th century Americana aesthetic. The town was first conceived of in the early nineties, and the Walt Disney company went on to invest nearly $2.5 billion in the project. The master plan was developed by the architecture and urban design firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners and was the brainchild of renowned architect and urban planner, Robert Stern. The quaint village later picked up a number of accolades for its design and in 2001 was named the "New Community of the Year" by the Urban Land Institute.
Former Disney CEO
Michael Eisner had a great amount of enthusiasm and interest in the development of the town. Eisner wanted the Disney Development Company to "make history" and build a community that was every bit as strategically-planned and sugar-sweet as the Disney brand. The Disney Development Company also met with experts in the fields of education, health and technology during construction. The result is something very much akin to
Jim Carrey's home-town in the satirical movie The Truman Show: it almost seems like a simulation, rather than a real place.
Perfection doesn't come cheap either: your average townhouse will send you back half a million dollars on average. No wonder the town appears so prosperous when you need a median income of $50,000 dollars a year to live there. Then there's the fact that homes don't usually go on the market very often in Celebration. Most of the people who live there are die-hard Disney fans who wouldn't want to live anywhere else. They've fallen in love with the art deco simplicity of the place, and they aim to stay there for life. Oh, and if you're looking to live somewhere diverse, then look elsewhere. A 2010 census established that 81.9 per cent of the population is white, and only 3.2 per cent Asian, 11.2 per cent Latin American, and 1.5 per cent black.
Yet, it seems that even this harmonious haven isn't immune to violence, tragedy and bloodshed. In 2010, on the Fourth of July - the most American of holidays - homeless man David Murillo beat and strangled 58-year-old Matteo Giovanditto, (a retired private school teacher who lived in Celebration) to death. Murillo had been sleeping in a tent in a camp for vagrants in the Kissimmee area for several years, earning $120 a day at a local bakery as a day labourer before its closure. He called upon Giovanditto, who often claimed to be a psychologist who dealt with youth addiction as a smokescreen in order to pick up sexual partners, because several days before he had offered him money to perform some odd jobs for him. Murillo alleged that he had been offered the couch to sleep on, but had woken up in the night to find Giovanditto molesting him while he slept.
After killing Giovanditto, he fled from justice, before being apprehended a week later. He was found guilty of second-degree homicide in January 2013. Did this horrific crime dampen the spirit of the model town? On the contrary: the townsfolk are happy to boast that their community has only had one murder in 14 years: a statistic they defy any other community to match. But then again, Celebration isn't a place for people who want to face the realities of contemporary life. This town is a place for people who harken back to a more peaceful and conscientious time.
In 2010, a mere month before the chilling murder of Matteo Giovanditto, I actually visited Celebration myself when vacationing in Orlando with my family. While I was there I spent the whole time trying to find something to complain about, even if it was only a stray blade of grass or a lukewarm drink. But everything was perfect. Again and again, it exceeded my expectations, and I resented it more and more.
It was immediately apparent that Celebration wasn't my kind of place. It felt like the town of Stepford in the Stepford Wives, yet nobody was brainwashed. It was eerie, and I felt like I couldn't live up to its standards. In my time, I've lived a lot of crappy places, but at least I felt like I fit in. In Celebration, I just felt creeped out. But hey - each to their own, right? And to be honest, I'm not sure the Disney corporation would want to associate with someone like me anyway.
