The first time I heard of Celebration, Florida, I almost laughed my head off. Here was a new concept for neighborhood development: houses close to the street and close to one another, with garages in the back, porches in the front, sidewalks, trees, a grid pattern for streets, places where children could walk to school. Can you imagine such a place?
Since the launch of this radical new idea – called traditional neighborhood development – neighborhoods in the Celebration mold have been springing up all over the country. Did I mention that Celebration is a Disney creation?
The Celebration website describes it as “a place where memories of a lifetime are made, it’s more than a home . . . Homes are a blend of traditional Southeastern exteriors with welcoming front porches. Celebration’s downtown is a traditional retail and business district modeled after those found in small American towns [with] retail shops, restaurants, a town hall, post office, grocery store, offices and a cinema.”
Wow, what a clever concept! And did I mention that houses at Celebration start at $300,000 and $400,000?
Talk about reinventing the wheel. Yes, it is nice that people are seeing that three-acre lots on cul de sacs and snout houses with three-car garages sticking out in front are not the way to go and that there is something downright charming about greeting neighbors out for a stroll from the comfort of your front porch. But while developers are creating these faux traditional neighborhoods, the real things are deteriorating or fighting for their lives. While more farmland and green space is being gobbled up to support these new traditional neighborhoods and the services to support them, our old traditional neighborhoods are struggling to survive.
Why support suburban sprawl and settle for an imitation, when in practically any city in this country and certainly any section of Roanoke, you can have the real thing, better built with wood and brick instead of plastic and vinyl, and for less money? And amenities galore – maybe not Jacuzzis and walk-in closets but gleaming hardwood floors, crown molding, built-in bookcases, French doors, and dining room chandeliers you can actually walk under without bopping your head. Plus sleeping porches and sunrooms, breakfast nooks, butler’s pantries, back stairs, solid oak and maple. HISTORY! Existing neighborhoods already have “memories of a lifetime.” We have connections to the families who lived and made memories before us – initials in the concrete, an old flower garden, lovingly planted by another generation.
I take comfort in knowing that my house and my neighborhood have weathered the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, floods, droughts, storms, snowfalls, 17-year locusts several times, good presidents and bad presidents. I enjoy knowing that when I was a little girl growing up in the Midwest people were making lives in what would one day be my house, my neighborhood.
Rather than try to re-create our neighborhoods in the suburbs, we need to live in and preserve these old places for future generations of families. Then we will indeed have cause for Celebration!
Brenda McDaniel, editor of this magazine between 1976 and 1983, served as president of the Greater Raleigh Court Civic League from 1998 to 2000. She is a member of Roanoke City Council.
