Celebration creates neighborly feel from scratch; Michigan cities follow on smaller scale
By Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News
The water tower is fake, the fence is made of hollow plastic and the lake is manmade.
Residents are so uniformly friendly that they seem no more genuine than the fixtures, but they insist they’re sincere. What’s more, they attribute some of the good cheer to the town’s layout, where homes are close together and near stores, restaurants and public parks.
Whether geography can affect social behavior is a question at the heart of an urban-planning movement influencing the appearance of communities in Michigan and the rest of America.
Developers see the so-called new urbanism as an antidote to a half-century of suburban sprawl, which has turned neighbors into strangers and rush-hour commutes into marathons.
Residents like it, too.
“It’s nice to know my neighbors, to go to the coffee shop and have them say, ‘Hey, preacher,’” says the Rev. Patrick Wrisley, 44, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Celebration.
“People value community and neighborliness. That’s something that we’ve lost in this culture. People want it and miss it.”
In southeast Michigan, two dozen neighborhoods use or plan to use various neotraditional tenets, such as building lots of sidewalks or turn-of-the-century architecture.
Westwood Commons in Beverly Hills has tightly clustered pastel houses with large front porches. The homes are near a public square where residents can gather.
In downtown Howell, the houses at Town Commons are close to the street with expansive porches out front and garages in the rear. Stores are just a short walk away.
With the exception of Cherry Hill Village in Canton Township, none of the Michigan communities has tried what Celebration has done: Build an entire town from scratch based solely on new urbanism principles.
And that’s why so many developers are following the travails of the Florida development, which was conceived by Disney a decade ago.
Not everyone is sold on the idea.
Some suggest that, no matter how good the plans of architects and urban planners, a sense of community has to evolve from the residents themselves.
They also wonder about heavy-handed attempts by the town to control every facet of community life. Ironically, controversies sparked by those efforts have done more than anything else to bring residents together.
Celebration grows
Celebration, which is 20 miles southwest of Orlando, has 8,500 residents spread over eight square miles.
It has 16 shops, six restaurants, four office buildings, two public schools and a golf course. Home prices range from $200,000 to $2.3 million, with the average being $300,000.
It’s a town of narrow streets, wide sidewalks and hidden cars.
Celebration has been popular ever since selling its first 500 houses and apartments in a one-day lottery in 1995. About 1,200 people plunked down $1,000 deposits for homes, sight unseen, that cost 25 percent more than comparable ones in the area.
Despite the poor economy, homes continue to sell briskly, breaking sales records the past three years. The town has sold a half-billion dollars’ worth of homes since 1999.
Some moved to Celebration because they’re self-professed Disneyphiles, mad about the mouse. Others are trying to recapture a simpler time from their childhoods.
While residents aren’t always sure what they’re coming to, they know what they’re running from: a deep-seated unhappiness with the American suburb. Living in virtual isolation for so many years have made residents like Diane Musick, 60, yearn for more contact with neighbors.
“After retiring, I wanted certain things: education and health opportunities, a vibrant community where people were friendly, helpful, neighborly,” the retiree says about her search for a new home. “When I walked in here, they had literally every thing on my list.”
New urbanism communities promote contact between neighbors by getting them out of their cars.
Modeled after 1930s towns in the Southeast, such as Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., they conjure a period before malls and highways.
They’re traditional small towns where the pedestrian, not the car, is king. Most things are within walking distance. And those strolls take walkers past front porches that are close enough to the street to encourage conversations between neighbors.
Parks, pools and other community facilities beckon residents to leave their homes and mingle with others.
Sense of community created
On a recent afternoon in downtown Celebration, residents sat on wooden rocking chairs in a pavilion along the man-made lake. The air filled with easy-listening music from ground-based speakers. A flat-bottom fountain continuously spewed water.
Part of the lake is bounded by a series of outdoor cafes and a cream-colored movie theater, whose stunning facade evokes the 1950s.
The nearby shopping district is a series of upscale gift shops and clothing stores along a brick road. Think downtown Birmingham, drenched with year-round summer.
“It’s a beautiful place,” says Anna Lauren Long, a clerk at Village Mercantile clothing store. “They work hard to maintain it.”
The rest of the community also is pleasing to the eye.
The clapboard homes sprout pastel colors and gingerbread detailing. They have columns, balconies, bay windows and massive doorways.
Garages are tucked behind the homes, accessible by paved alleys. That’s also where garbage cans are collected.
The homes and manicured lawns are fussed over by a small army of service workers. One of the lawn care firms is named AAA Perfection.
The streets are shrouded by oaks and sycamores. The rear entrance to the community takes one past 800 stately pines that line both sides of the road for two miles.
“I was yelling at the developer for making the streets so narrow, but he explained that was done to slow down the cars,” says real estate agent and resident Sonny Buoncervello, 61. “The lots are so small, but that helps you meet all your neighbors.”
So what’s being celebrated in Celebration? The good life.
This is a community that hears fireworks every night, courtesy of nearby Disney World, and the jingle of an ice cream truck 12 months a year. It has hosted the Great American Pie Festival three years in a row.
According to the March issue of the town newsletter, the two biggest safety issues among residents were skateboarders using a downtown bridge abutment as a ramp, and youths driving gas-powered scooters recklessly.
Every need is cared for, no matter how small, like ensuring that all outdoor basketball rims have nets.
Town creates tourist draws
From the day after Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, it snows every night in Celebration. Also, during two weekends in October, oak leaves fall from palm trees downtown.
The “snow” is soap bubbles and the 2 1/2-inch “leaves” are tissue paper.
Such events, intended to draw tourists to local shops, give the impression that the town is just another Disney theme park in central Florida.
Visitors have asked residents whether they’re actors and if they can tour their homes.
The somewhat defensive denizens of Celebration are sometimes compelled to remind people that they’re authentic.
“We Celebrants are most certainly real and our numbers are growing,” resident Scott Almond, 34, harrumphed in a letter to the local paper.
The town is marked by contradictions that contribute to the sense of unreality.
Celebration has a town hall, sitting behind 28 columns, a veritable white forest, but no government. It sits on a swamp but, because of heavy spraying, has few mosquitoes. The town has little history but a multitude of “traditions,” which were invented by Disney.
Some residents say the town likes the idea, but not the reality, of having traditions and a history and democracy. It doesn’t like the messiness of real life.
“Disney is good at handling crowds at amusement parks,” says resident Alex Morton, 71, who owns and edits the weekly newspaper, Celebration Independent. “But building a community is not like building an amusement park. You can control crowds but you can’t control people.”
A three-day visit to Celebration found no poor people, little litter, few blaring car horns or raised voices. But it also yielded few minorities and no blue-collar workers, except for those working there.
The town had banned for-sale signs, fearing it would send the wrong message. It eventually relented, allowing oval “Home Available” signs as long as their width is no more than two feet.
Rules rule town
In Celebration, messiness is prevented by myriad rules that seem to cover any contingency.
The appearance of homes and lawns, alone, are governed by a 70-page pattern book.
Among the rules: Curtains that face the street must be white or off-white. The color of a home, unless it’s white, can’t be duplicated within three homes on the same side of the street. At least a quarter of the front and side gardens must have something besides grass.
One of the casualties of all the restrictions was a University of Michigan scarecrow that Jim and Marita Siegel put up every fall. The Siegels, who moved from Plymouth in 2002, now must wait until October. They can hoist their school flag only on game day.
But the Michiganians are fans of the strict code.
I don’t want someone putting their car on blocks in the front yard,” says Jim Siegel, 59, a longtime Ford executive. “We’re buying more than a house. We’re buying a lifestyle and a sense that this town will not change.”
You can reach Francis X. Donnelly at (313) 223-4186 or fdonnelly@detnews.com.
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