Welcome to Celebration, Florida.

This is an actual town that was planned by the Disney corporation a decade or so ago, located a stone's throw away from Walt Disney World itself.

After spending the day revisiting St. Cloud, a place I lived for a few years in the mid-80s, I had my sister take me on a little tour of Celebration, to see what it was really like.

I had heard that it was planned as a reaction to the suburban sprawl that had affected so much of modern life. Houses would look old-fashioned, with garages in the back and porch swings in the front. The town square would be within walking distance for everyone. Houses would be affordable.

And that's basically what it looks like. The town square was jumping, the streets were clean and tree-lined, and the Christmas decorations were out. Very Norman Rockwell. If Rockwell had used pastels and painted lots of palm trees.

The history of Celebration, as far as I can gather, is that it promised a return to a more "innocent" time, where kids played kick the can and chased fireflies, while their parents gathered together at the lake to talk and commune.

As usual it didn't quite work out that way.

The usual squabbling and in-fighting occurred. The houses were shabbily built, and at the same time never became affordable to the "average" homebuyer. A library wasn't built by the county, and the school had problems. Residents complained of living a "fishbowl" existence, due to the media coverage. Apparently when visitors would drive through the streets, gawking at "The Disney Town" (ahem, just like I was doing), teens would move herky-jerky like Disney animatronics.) Eventually Disney slowly backed away.

I'm all for creating towns that aren't so centered around our goddamn cars, where houses aren't secondary to the three-car garages. I like the idea of being able to take a walk "downtown" and run into friends and neighbors. I like to think that the world was like that at one time, instead of this sad, disconnected feel of everything we have today.

But I don't know if towns like Celebration are the answer, where "looking back" is considered progress. At one time I may have believed that. At one time I thought the small-town, Bedford Falls/Cicely, Alaska way of life was the cure for society's (or at least my) ills. And maybe small town life still is a wonderful life to live. I still enjoy heading back home and drinking beer with my friends in the Old Tyme Inn on Main Street, but I can't live like that every day. At the same time I'm not giving an endorsement to the horrific strip-mall/five-lane highway neighborhood I live in now, either.

I think Celebration doesn't work for me because it doesn't seem very "organic" to me. Even though all the other suburbs and neighborhoods were built one way, This One Will Be Different.

It seems too much like the family that hates each other posing for a Christmas card where it's all smiling faces and happy holiday sweaters.

I think our modern suburban life is a real mess, and I'm not the first person to say that, and I certainly don't have the answers. But I don't think a planned community like Celebration is the answer, either.

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What is interesting to me is where Celebration will go next, now that ownership has changed and the residents have cycled through once or twice. Now that the high-concept "idea" of Celebration has worn off, what will happen to Celebration? How will it evolve?