The two-story houses and well-kept gardens that, for the most part, serve as homes for white and Republican families don’t even look real. You could be in Stars Hollow or Wisteria Street, the neighborhood from Desperate Housewives. Choose your favorite fictional suburb. Wide sidewalks, big cars in the garage, children who play fearlessly in the streets and attend one of the best public schools in the country. If someone could materialize the American dream and everything it represents, it would probably come to something very similar to Celebration, a small community of 10,000 inhabitants in Florida.
And that was more or less the idea of the Walt Disney Company when it founded the city. Separated from the world outside by white picket fences and a set of rules that make all that artificial perfection possible, Celebration was created 20 years ago to be an experiment in a city of the future. Ironically, it is to the past that she looks, as she nostalgically tries to replicate the suburban lifestyle of 1950s America in a rapidly changing country.
In the small shopping center, couples can still share a milk shake at a local cafe and walk the streets to window shop. Something rare nowadays, in a culture increasingly dominated by chain stores, empty shopping malls, air conditioning and in which walking seems like a misdemeanor.
The place was created to be the ideal American city. The houses, many of which belong to celebrities – Silvio Santos has a mansion there – and wealthy people, must comply with an architectural standard. Any change to the facades must be authorized by the community administration and even the color of the walls is subject to regulation. Palm trees, very common in the state’s gardens, are prohibited. “We don’t want people to feel like they’re in Florida,” said the guide who accompanied me on the visit. “The idea is that they think they could be anywhere in the country.”
Peter Rummell, project coordinator, told The Economist that people were under the impression that when they moved there their gardens would never have weeds and that their children would always come home with A’s on their report cards. It’s understandable. So much perfection on the outside makes us imagine that there is also perfection on the inside. This may not be true, but this is the idea that the American dream has been selling for decades. Getting a place in paradise, however, is no easy task. To live there, you have to join a waiting list or participate in an annual draw for a chance to buy a house.
I discovered Celebration on a bicycle, on a one-hour tour through the city’s flat, impeccable streets. The tour was accompanied by a local guide. He told me that he moved there when he was 14 and never wanted to leave the city again. Today, now out of his parents’ house, he rents a one-bedroom apartment in an area further away from the small local center, works receiving tourists and wouldn’t leave Celebration for anywhere in the world.
As we cycled, he stopped to greet neighbors running around the lake and to share interesting facts about the town and the people who live in it. There is no denying that the tour is beautiful and pleasant, but, more than that, for me it also had the flavor of an anthropological experience of a side of the United States that until then I had chosen to leave out of my travels.
Service – The guided tour at Celebration needs to be booked in advance on the company’s website, but you can also rent bikes for two hours ($15) and do the tour on your own.
Where to stay in Celebration
Celebration is also a good accommodation option for those traveling to Orlando and Disney, as it is very close to the parks. Click here to find hotels in the city.
Health insurance
Attention: It is not a good idea to travel to the United States without international health insurance, as hospital costs there are very high. Read here how to find cost-effective insurance.
The trip to Florida and bike ride in Celebration were part of an invitation from Visit Kissimee.
