placespace

Toronto, Radiant City

A new way of thinking about the slabs of the suburbs.

Jeff Wall

The Crooked Path, 1991
A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), 1993

Radical Cartography II

from Chris Yates

Paradise, USA

In Travel and Leisure this month Karrie Jacobs proves once again-- far more elegantly than I've ever read before-- that "New Urbanism" is absolutely confounding. I remember one particularly heated argument about Celebration, back in 1997, just as the town opened-- an argument I would have won if I knew this, even if it was obvious!:

Everyone I meet along the way tells me the same story: Disney actually has less and less to do with Celebration. In 2003 the majority on the Celebration Residential Owners’ Association shifted from representatives of the Disney-owned Celebration Company to the home- owners. According to the locals, Celebration—à la Pinocchio—is on its way to becoming a real town. On the other hand, in early 2004, Disney sold the entire business district to a company called Lexin Capital. The fact that downtown Celebration can be sold in its entirety—18 acres, 16 shops, six restaurants, some office space, and a number of apartments—explains a lot about why it doesn’t feel real.

Make sure to read through to the part about the "Third Place Pub & Grille." (link)

photo of downtown Celebration by Martha Camarillo for Travel & Leisure