“As a Floridian from Brevard County (the county touching Osceola, where Celebration is, on the east side) I've been through Celebration many a-time. I am personally disgusted by the philosophy of the town, the elitist and racist nature of the town (whether inherent or accidental, it is such), and the economic and ecological effect the town and its construction have had on the surrounding areas, not to mention physically appalled by the architecture and aesthetics of the town itself. So in reading the book, it is hard to separate myself and my personal opinions and experiences of Celebration from the authors perspectives and experiences. The authors do attempt to give an "unbiased" account of the beginning of Celebration, with both the flaws of the individual people who live there as well as of the Corporation behind the town displayed as transparently as possible, and I believe that *they believe* they have. Note my statement: They believe they have given a fairly reported account, and I believe in their belief, but I do not believe they actually gave an unbiased account. For one, that is almost impossible--if not actually impossible--for anyone to do, and these authors are no exceptions. For another, the authors are obviously "Pro-Celebration", and as such, they do their best to frame all criticisms in the framework of "Constructive criticism, followed by the positive reinforcement of and A-for-Effort!" Yes, the authors appear to tell the "unbiased" truth by writing about mistakes made, but their attitude about such mistakes are very much based on their overall opinion of the worthyness of the attempt of Celebration. They seem to find Disneys "hubris" of attempting to create their own town from the ground up to be an example of True-American-Pioneering-Spirit and are pleased by and encouraging of such an attempt. They constantly (and quite ironically) refer to the town with the phrase "A Brave New ____", apparently missing entirely the reference to Huxley's a Brave New World. On several different occasions, Disney's completely illegal actions are disclosed without so much as a bat of an eye. So, while the authors do talk about "mistakes" made, their overall writing style is so indicative of their attitude one can't say they're unbiased? If what they did share was done so with such a clearly positive bias, I wonder what the opposite bias would look like, because as the common maxim says, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Overall, I disagree with and dislike the authors and their opinions, thus making it difficult for me to enjoy the book (thus, like it) despite the fact that I found it to be a useful and interesting (morbidly) reference. ”
