Celebration, U.S.A.

When the Walt Disney Company unveiled its plans to build the town of :he future, a model for environmentally sound, community-supportive urban development, it generated enormous interest around the country and the world. After all, Disney is one of the world's best-known brand names, with a string of successes from theme parks to Broadway—though none was known for being environmentally friendly or socially conscious. Still, the plan for Celebration, Florida, was powerful enough to draw some of the world's leading architects and urban planners. Public interest was so strong that a lottery was required to pick the first residents from thousands of homeseekers.

Among the early residents were New York Times reporter Doug Frantz and his wife, Cathy Collins. Along with their two school-age children, they moved into the community shortly after the very first wave of people had arrived. Openly acknowledging that they were there to report on the town, they would spend the next two years as both observers and participants. The result is Celebration, U.S.A.—a report from the front lines that will surprise Disneyphobes and Disneyphiles alike.

This is an interim report. The town is evolving, and it will be years before we know if or how it succeeds. But what Celebration, U.S.A. reveals is how a new town begins to develop real community structures and just how much social engineering can be done through bricks and mortar. Perhaps most important, it reveals how deeply unhappy millions of Americans are living in their isolated suburban, car-dependent world.

Is Celebration a model for the future? Not yet. But it has clearly struck a nerve deep in the nation's soul. Something beyond the architecture and planning, beyond the Disney label, has drawn people to this new frontier. And in telling the story of Celebration, authors Frantz and Collins tell us as much about our dreams and desires as about the way Disney set to work inventing this brave new town. Like the best of social reporting, this book challenges us to consider what we want for ourselves, our kids, and our country as the world heads into a new century.

Douglas Frantz is on t he national staff of The New York Times and has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and The Albuquerque Tribune. Catherine Collins has written for the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Doug and Cathy are the coauthors of Teachers: Talking Out of School.