Manufactured community

NOTIONS OF COMMUNITY HAVE BEEN MANUFACTURED, PACKAGED AND MARKETED TO AN INDIVIDUALISTIC SOCIETY. IS THE HOMOGENOUS ARCHITECTURE AND IMAGERY OF THE COOKIE CUTTER A FORM OF SELF-FULFILMENT? OR IS IT A COMMODITY OF CONFORMITY?

37 Manufacturing Community

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITY

Through the analysis of The Villages, Florida, Disney’s town of Celebration and Auckland’s Masonic Village this essay describes the manufacturing of community. In each of these precedents the idea and imagery of community is used as a commodity in which to sell property. Each of these developments are highly successful in their packaging of nostalgia, neighbour and lifestyle, This essay will examine the architectural and urban language and conditions they employ in the selling of community.

39 Manufacturing Community

CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION? Named in the hopeful American tradition of towns like Harmony, Eden, Experiment and Amity,

Celebration is not just a constellation of dream homes, lavishly packaged by a canny developer.1 It is also the product of a company that sells fantasy. Celebration is a highly marketable and optimistic town pushing the American Dream, utopian images of neighbourhood and nostalgia for a time when everyone knew everyone else’s name. Devised by the original developer of never-never land, Celebration could not avoid its baptism as an instant utopia.2 But as both Douglas Frantz and Andrew Ross argue, beneath the hyped image Celebration is a real working town.

Master-planned by Robert A. M. Stern and Jaquelin Robertson, with a bank by Robert Venturi, post office

by Michael Graves, movie theatre by Cesar Pelli and a town hall by Phillip Johnson, Celebration is like a theme park of an architectural ideology and era. Celebration is the most fully realized expression of the principles of New Urbanism. In opposition to the automobile dominated suburban sprawl within America, Stern and Robertson wished to reinstate the virtues of early twentieth century American town life with pedestrian scaled communities, mixed housing types and accessible amenities. As Frantz writes, they became a one car family, seeing walking or cycling as a preferred form of transport .3 The limits to growth and the positioning of the school, town centre and leisure facilities within the residential fabric reduced the communities reliance on vehicles.

Fig. 10.

Sign of Celebration

The Village Voice

Fig. 11.

Cottage homes

Andrew Ross

41

Although Celebration pushed the image of “progressive” and “experimental” urbanity, the theming is highly nostalgic and quaint. Houses follow six different styles; Classical, Victorian, Colonial Revival, Coastal Mediterranean and French Normandy. The town employed posterior dating to make it look like the town has gradually grown organically over time. The porches, gingerbread detail, white picket fences, clock towers and swing-sets all carefully crafted and positioned to disguise the fact that Celebration is as plastic and manufactured as a Disney theme park.

Everything was considered, down to the Cheltenham typeface.

The street signs, shop signs,

ornamentation were all designed to create a coherent sense of place without overwhelming residents with branding.4 Because of this plastic nature the authenticity of Celebration has been questioned. But the styles of the pattern book are not exclusive to Celebration; they are present everywhere in the American suburban fabric. Celebration conformed to the suburban mould as its embodied small-town, neighbourly imagery was its marketing device.

The New Urbanist’s stated nostalgia was the Trojan horse in which they delivered their radical planning ideas.5 But although the mix of housing typologies, small yards, well planned public space could be deemed experimental I think the demographic it encouraged lacked this radicalism. The aim to manufacture diversity through a mix of housing typologies (townhouse, apartments and single family detached dwellings) at different price ranges was not successful. The demographic of Celebration is predominantly middle class, educated Baby Boomers and their families, with most households averaging between three to four children and real-estate values far above the national average.6 Possibly the most radical (and contentious) experiment was Celebration’s school. The unconventional method of minimal assessment, grading and the shifting of responsibility from the teachers to the students was challenging for the conventional demographic and led to conflict between school and parents.7 The relentlessly cheerful monoculture is inescapably Orwellian.8 But it is not gated, age-segregated or seeking to restrict or alienate. Its intention was for a return to small-town values and regardless of how you feel about this approach both Frantz and Ross believe it to be true. The size and atmosphere of Celebration influenced an assumed collective and led to a high proportion of community involvement and participation, town meetings full to bursting, no declining committees and a rather defensive pride in the town. The nuclear family, security, small yards, quiet streets and well planned public space is weighed against minimal diversity in race and wealth, conventional and conservative thinking, an obsession with leisure and an almost delusional positivity.

Manufacturing Community

manhole covers, park benches and a seventy page pattern book for house

THE VILLAGE(S)

Deane Simpson dubs The Villages as an experiment in “Gerotopia”9 an enormous, homogenous,

mono-demographic city of 81,000 people over 55 which has constructed its own artificial identity. The massive scale of The Villages is deliberately masked through the marketing subdivision of the territory into smaller sized neighbourhoods or “villages” with their own name, identity and amenities.

The Villages applies theming to support an image of hometown nostalgia. The atmosphere of the small town is emphasized through the themed design of the ’historic’ town squares surrounded by ‘quaint’ artificially aged buildings between two and three storeys in height. The Villages employs story-telling devices in the propagating of a history, historic plaques of fictitious events and fictitious people are erected in the town squares and elaborate narratives are developed for the Spanish Springs in the Spanish Springs Gazette.10 Scenic ageing and props help to build up the broader material and conceptual environment. At Lake Sumter considerable effort has been taken to arrange sunken and abandoned fishing boats, plastic seagulls and painted seagull droppings.11 There is an immediacy and phoniness to this colonising of architecture and landscape. It must not age with the inhabitants, it must be a bright, clean new-historic.

Fig. 12.

Florida’s Friendliest Hometown

Deane Simpson

43 Manufacturing Community

The result is a “…celebration of the inauthentic.”12 The image of the small town, suggests an alignment with New Urbanism. But although the downtowns’ pedestrian-oriented public spaces speak of New Urbanist principles, in reality they are mono-functional commercial centres that exclude living. Low-density residential suburbs are separated from the downtowns through zoning and although they are marketed as self-sufficient villages the residential areas are reliant on typical commercial strip mall sprawl, present at the periphery of the development.

Simpson describes The Villages as a precise and conscious exploitation of demographic economies of scale. In spatial terms The Villages fulfil Wendell Smith’s 1956 theory of market segmentation,

securing and consolidating a specific demographic segment. The Villages are a comprehensive lifestyle product, directed toward the specific needs and desires of the ‘young-old’.13 To an aging population the age-segregated community was presented as a positive and necessary alternative to the perceived lack of privacy in the extended family home, the institutional stigma of the nursing home and the burden-some maintenance and social isolation of the “empty nest.”14

Each village consists of a single repetitive housing type directed toward a specific market sub-segment.

Personalization is emphasized but all designs conform to the village they are within. The materials, colours and geometries are clearly defined. The result is a proliferation of similar detached one-storey, single family homes laid out on sculpted man-made landscapes of lawns and lakes with gates and guard houses at the controlled entrances to secure their private paradise.

The Villages as an urban condition is sold as a ‘lifestyle product’ and envisioned as a “Disney World for active retirees.”15 The Villages provides a new form of the idealized leisure society. As Hugh Bartling discusses in Tourism as Everyday Life, The Villages offers a permanent year-round vacation. Using the framework of the “resort” it creates a utopia centred on an individualized and privatized, rather than a communal, vision of leisure.

The retirement utopia markets itself through its lifestyle-focused amenities; including two downtowns, strip malls, 91 recreational centres, 69 pools and 47 golf courses.16 Here the habits, organisation and structure of work are applied in the programming of a hyperactive-adult leisure environment. Through the consolidation of their demographic, inhabitants consume amenities specific to their new occupation of leisure - avoiding pressure to contribute to wider common services like schools, kindergartens or playgrounds.

Fig. 13.

Mutation of the hospital typology

Deane Simpson

45

The ‘young-olds’ aversion to associating ageing with institutions like the hospital has led to its urban mutation in The Villages. The large scale contemporary hospital has been divided up into clinics,

commercialized and dispersed along the US27/441 highway.17 (Fig.13) Functionally similar to the medical centre, the “professional plazas” of The Villages resemble the single storey strip mall, with large signage and adjacent parking lots. The rejection of the institutional scale and division of the hospital programme represents the young-old ethos of individual empowerment and consumer choice.

The Villages strip supports approximately 35 clinics per mile along its 5 mile length and spatializes the transition from passive patient to active consumer.18

largest age-segregated community in the world and the fastest selling master-planned lifestyle product in the United States. This is in no way a village; it is a calculating and commercial beast. But perhaps this nature is only truly visible from above. Aerial photographs ( Fig. 14) show the extreme consolidation of power of the Morse family in the sheer scale of the development and the 485Ha gap in the Villages plan that is devoted to the Morse estate.19 Blechman observes the Morse family resemble theme park owners as their ownership extends to the restaurants, shops, laundromats, banks and even media that service its captive population.

Fig. 14.

Aerial Photograph of The Villages

Google Maps

Manufacturing Community

The Villages urban format is commonly referred to as an “active adult community.” In reality, it is the

The internal propaganda of the utopian village is as specific and successful as its external marketing.

As well as the radio mantra “…it’s a beautiful day in the villages,”20 The Villages boast three television channels, a monthly magazine and a daily newspaper.

Florida’s friendliest hometown is segregated by age and wealth. Age stipulation requires at least one member of the household to be over the age of fifty-five and limits visits for those under the age of nineteen to a maximum of thirty days per year.21 This demographic segregation and the high demand and price of property influences the homogenous character of The Villages, and its inhabitants. Slightly disconcerting is the village uniform noted by Blechman; - khaki shorts, polo shirts and loafers.22

But it is The Villages’ racial and social uniformity that is most disturbing, 97% of inhabitants are white and 80% are married couples.23 The Villages allows for the reconciliation of two normally irreconcilable utopias; low suburban density and the abundant services typical of cities. But it does so through a concentrated homogenous composition.

The Villages exploits the aesthetics’ of New Urbanism but it bypasses its performative, political and ecological agenda, creating a vast gated community for the affluent.

As a large majority of the resident population consists of recently displaced arrivals, The Villages defines a site of individual and collective tabula rasa, a clean slate upon which residents construct their own identity and position within a network of social relations.24 Like many retirement models, interaction is encouraged through facilities and shared-interest activities of the age cohort. In the Villages community revolves around the consumption of the hyperactive leisure environment, such as sports, hobbies and interest clubs, educational classes and neighbourhood associations.

The Villages homogenous urbanity engineers a form of community. The similar theming of the downtowns, the repetitive housing type and the vocabulary of the marketing evoke the nostalgic imagery of the small-town. The focus on shared leisure facilities and flat socio- economic structure facilitate an impression of commonality and belonging. Overall this gated community supports a pseudo-familiarity between strangers without imposing the obligation or expectation of a shared environment.

47 Manufacturing Community

MASONIC VILLAGE, AUCKLAND

1960

The Masonic Village follows the radial logic of many retirement villages- a series of concentric circles of independence radiating outwards from a central care facility. The 92-bed hospital is located on the left, with a central 117 bed rest home including serviced private rooms, cafeteria and lounges as well as a scattering of 42 small cottage-like dwellings within the park-like setting.25 The Masonic Village’s central rest home has a very institutional hospital-like plan with private rooms coming off an efficient central circulation. The resulting form is a linear structure with wings radiating outwards to create semi-enclosed exterior gardens (Fig.15).

The cottages are all highly regular in plan and relate to each other through various spatial arrangements.

The small rectangular units are detached side by side, semi-detached and staggered diagonally in twos and threes, or attached perpendicular to each other. The typologies and their arrangement within the complex reflect the stages of aging; - from detached independent living at the perimeter of the site with proximity to help if necessary, to final hospitalization in the centre of the complex.

Fig. 15.

Masonic Village 1960

Clough & Associates

This centralization also mirrors the economic and social logic of the retirement village. A trust controls the maintenance and development of the village. Residents buy into the trust, securing a private unit or room until death but not the title of the property. Residents’ spaces are private but land is not privatized legally into plots. Similarly facilities and activities are shared between residents. Although there are self-sufficient units and rooms with ensuites, a large population shares spaces and schedules. The use of lounges, recreation rooms, craft times, meal times, chapel on Sundays and the gardens encourage interaction between residents.

A similar architectural character throughout the Masonic complex is used to simulate a cohesive community. The brick aesthetic and vernacular forms tie the different scales of buildings together and the winding driveways, footpaths, front lawns and spatial arrangement of buildings combine to mimic the imagery of a village.

The Masonic is not a gated community but it is clearly demarcated and separate from the surrounding suburb. The homogenous imagery, the circular roadway and the spatial arrangement of the clusters of buildings create an invisible barrier. Although the central garden is park-like it is not a public space and the buildings surrounding it turn their back on the street further emphasizing the insular nature of the Masonic Village.

49 Manufacturing Community

SELWYN HEIGHTS

2005 - ON-GOING

Due to the changing age structure and a growing demand for retirement lifestyle options the Masonic Village was bought out by the Selwyn Foundation who is developing the site to increase capacity and meet the market’s desires. As stated in their brochure, the new Selwyn Heights will “balance exclusive country club leisure with the comfort and security of your own home. “26 The Selwyn Foundation has completed a large U-shaped apartment building, Gilberd apartment and Macdonald community centre in a dominant position in the centre of the complex. This includes four upper levels of 2 and 4 bedroom apartments (44 in total). All with balcony, air conditioning, kitchen, laundry and added assurance of 24-hour onsite nursing care. The Macdonald community centre facilities on ground floor include: shop, café/restaurant, hydrotherapy spa, wellness centre, lounge bar, movie theatre, multifunction recreation room, library, craft room, outdoor bowling green and an extensive activities programme.27 Selwyn Heights has 116 units for independent retirement living including apartments and villas. “Al fresco” seating, water features and pleasant walkways offer residents an opportunity to relax in a resort-style environment of recreation and leisure.

Fig. 16.

Advertisement for the New Selwyn Heights Development

The Selwyn Foundation

This push towards a “country club” image and the “privacy” and “individuality” of the variety of floor plans reflects the shift in the market. The elder is no longer a patient but a consumer. The recent advertisements (Fig. 16) by the Selwyn Foundation reflects a push to market themselves as lifestyle apartments for active individuals to appeal to the Baby Boomer demographic. Phrases like “downsizing or a chance to upsize your lifestyle?”28, the construction of multi-level apartments and the naming of the development Selwyn Heights shows a tactical shedding of the retirement village image.

51 Manufacturing Community

Fig. 17.

The homogenous dream home

As no one originates from them, retirement typologies manufacture community and simulate belonging through their urban or architectural imagery and the consolidation of a homogenous demographic.

Christopher Alexander argues “…old people cannot be integrated socially as in traditional cultures unless they are first integrated physically.”29 Traditional models of retirement and care have been based around this notion that a physical collective generates a social or emotional collective, or a ‘community’. In A Pattern Language, Alexander describes the fashioning of integration and participation between the aged through centralisation and the envisioning of space as a series of concentric rings. A ‘neighbourhood’ radiating out from a central care facility to a ring of small units surrounding and then to an outer ring of units mixed into the greater suburban context.

Contemporary models of active adult communities are also organized around this centralized logic and consolidation as community. In age-segregated communities like The Villages the population is organized into small-scale zones or ‘villages’ made up of a similar repeating housing type. These manufactured “villages” are orientated around central “downtowns” that service the population. Each village supports unique nostalgic theming, celebrating the familiar through monotonous imagery and establishing an inclusive comfort zone for inhabitants.

Fig. 18.

Orewa, New Zealand

Google Street View

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But this manufacturing of community through forced physical proximity and monotonous imagery creates a colony that excludes as much as it includes. “Homes in retirement villages often use the same material and only 3 types of plan; this makes the image of the retirement village a type of colony. The isolation from surrounds, marked identity and homogenous image can create invisible disconnection and reduce interaction�30 In The Villages the colony takes the form of a privatized, gated suburb of themed detached housing. It is physically secured and socially exclusive by age and wealth. Within the Masonic Village the demarcation of private space is more subtle, relying on the insular spatial arrangement, materials and monotonous

The privatization and commodification evident in these precedents directly contradict the declarations of community in these urban conditions. In both The Villages and the Masonic the term community

is manipulated and reduced to nostalgic imagery through small-town theming and vocabulary.

Community is assigned a capital value, packaged, marketed and sold in the form of private property.

Fig. 19.

The Villages, Florida

Value Vacation

Manufacturing Community

imagery to informally enforce a separation from its surrounds.

The community facilitated by these precedents could more accurately be termed a consolidation of a market segment. The resulting urban product has high levels of uniformity, socially, economically and aesthetically, securing its own sustainability. It is its homogeny and conformity that establishes a form of social cohesion.

The formation of the colony contradicts the declarations of personal freedom in the precedent’s marketing. The Villages represent a precise and conscious manipulation of the ‘young-olds’ individualistic agenda, yet the resulting architectural product is one of conformity. Retirement villages, age segregated communities like The Villages and the local developments targeting an ageing population visible in Orewa (Fig.16) all market an architecture of conformity as a product of self-determination.

Endless cookie cutter homes, similar formally and spatially, are sold as the fulfilment of individuality. The formal character and ornamentation is so similar that a house in Orewa and one in Florida could very well exist side by side. Variation is tightly controlled, textures, colours and finishes are “selected” from the same material pallet and any differentiation is purchased; terracotta instead of concrete, double instead of single garage, landscaping, a boat, a campervan, a fence or hedge. This purchasing of individualism by the young-old is neither utopian nor dystopian, but it is a clear denial of a prevailing commercial influence. The Villages make evident the Orwellian nature of the commodity sold and architecture’s conformity under the guise of self-differentiation. The current architecture of retirement typologies is a commodity of conformity, carefully marketed to an individualistic cohort.

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IN AN ERA OF GROWING INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IS COMMUNITY DECLINING?

COLLECTIVE SUB-CULTURES?

Manufacturing Community

OR IS IT BEING BROKEN DOWN INTO SMALLER

57 Manufacturing Community

LITERATURE REVIEW

With no single dominant architectural text or theorist addressing an urbanism specific to the ‘new-old’, this literature review addresses collective and individualistic models for living from a socio-demographic perspective. Comparing Robert D. Putnam’s research on declining community in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community to Eric Klinenberg‘s work on the rise of the soloists in Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

BOWLING ALONE: THE COLLAPSE AND REVIVAL OF AMERICAN COMMUNITY - Robert D. Putnam

Robert D. Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community addresses the social ideology surrounding community. With exhaustive data (500,000 interviews over 25years) Putnam

describes the declining participation in political, civic and religious organizations as a decrease in ‘social capital’.

Putnam expands this notion of social capital to describe an overall disconnection in American society and modern American life, an assertion I find questionable. Putnam uses terms like “civic decay” and “social splintering” to evoke an image that something cherished is being destroyed. Putnam makes it clear he believes the current trend is leading to the impoverishment of our lives and communities. Although Putnam’s tone pushes for a drastic civic re-invention his solutions seem pretty passive; including educational programs, work-based initiatives and funded community-service programs.

Although Putnam backs up his assertions with impressive empirical evidence he fails to clarify what constitutes social capital. Initially defining social capital as, “… connections among individuals- social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” 31 Then contradicting this definition by suggesting social capital within community affiliation is based on a symbolic identification rather than personal networks. Purnam provides the example of Greenpeace, a professional social-movement organization, where community becomes a form of commercial enterprise.

In Putnam’s own words he reduces the social capital to,” the exacting science of recruiting donors, minimizing expectation of individual participant to just writing a cheque.32 Putnam’s inconsistencies further extend to emotive flourishes where he relates social capital to “fraternity” or a form of brotherhood.33 Yet in chapter nineteen, regarding economics, Putnam reduces social capital to “information flows”34 which is devoid of the reciprocity and trust mentioned previously.

Overall Putnam seems unable to clarify social capital, confusing the relationship between the underlying social norms which embody social capital and the various activities which allegedly signal its presence

59

or absence. There is a lack of attention to the nature of individual decision making and theories involving homo-economics, the theory that cooperative behaviour derives from perceived self-interest. Putnam fails to analyse the constraints, preferences and beliefs that define an individual’s choice. And fails to and past behaviours. Without this contextualisation of the individual within the larger body Putnam’s analysis reads as a superficial generalization of detailed statistics.

Putnam searches for exogenous effects, like television and two career families to explain organizational decline but fails to see endogenous shifts. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow believes the small group

movement to be the “quiet revolution” in American society, redefining community. But Putnam dismisses this as community with no muscle. Stating these groups “…merely provide occasions for individuals to focus on themselves in the presence of others. The social contract binding them together asserts only the weakest of obligations.”35 Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Weightwatchers and book clubs transfer the focus from the “civic” to the “self” and are highly individualistic collectives more concerned with the participant’s emotional state than an altruistic public interest. But the endogenous outcomes of social relations like this would surely create a form of binding social capital. The shift from the rigid and large collectives of the past to smaller more flexible systems poses interesting questions about possible new versions or mutations of Putnam’s social capital.

Perhaps we are not experiencing a decline in social capital but a decline in social pressure. Putnam assumes that rising divorce numbers indicate the declining social capital within families, but it could also indicate the dissolving of a relationship with deficient social capital. Putnam even acknowledges in this text that as traditional systems of community broke down in America, tolerance and liberalism grew.36 Walter Begehot suggests “the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next door neighbour …public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits”37

Manufacturing Community

acknowledge how individual choice is influenced by perspective, a context of others’ choices, opinions

Ideas of expectation, obligation, conformity and the exertion of influence are entrenched in the notion of community. The rise of individual freedom, a cynicism towards organizations and the rise of the small group movement seem like positive social change when pitted against this. New flexible networks of socializing, joining and leaving on your own terms seem to be the new preferred activity for a changing culture. Perhaps traditional community no longer fits in a society that emphasizes personal

choice and individual freedom?

But Putnam’s work does offer one clear cautionary note. Our growing individualism has led to a stratification of society into smaller and smaller groupings. And one must be aware of the underlying socio-economic differentiations. There is a risk as we identify ourselves as part of a smaller group, we allow ourselves to be emotionally removed from a problem or situation and an ability to coalesce when there is a clear need for collective action.

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GOING SOLO: THE EXTRAORDINARY RISE AND SURPRISING APPEAL OF LIVING ALONE - Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg’s article, Living Alone is the New Norm, offers an opposing view to Putnam’s affinity for the civic. Klinenberg promotes the rise of solitary living as a constructive shift shaping the world. Nearly 33 million Americans (28% of all U.S households) live alone, making them more common than any other domestic unit, including the nuclear family.38

leading society, including architects, to overlook the emergence of a new soloist population and possible advances to living and urban conditions.

Putnam’s assertions of “social splintering” and the diminishing American dream are revoked by Klinenberg, who proposes a new individualistic ideology. Klinenberg believes the individual freedom, personal control and self-realization associated with the soloist population affords a stronger basis for social activity.39 Although Klinenberg’s differentiation between living alone and living lonely is contentious, the assertion is backed up with 300 in depth interviews in his book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

What interests me is both authors identify the same clear trends in the social and civic fabric of America over the last 50 years including; increasing liberalism, decreasing civic capital, a decline in the proportion of nuclear family households and an increase in solo living. Although there are exceptions, irregularities and schisms in the data, the belief that the “American experience” is transforming is held by both.

Where they differ is their perspective on “community” and its value. Putnam argues for community as an organized system, encouraging civic or social capital through expectation and a perceived responsibility. Putnam seems divided on community’s value within this era of social transformation, providing moments of utter cynicism, yet always reverting to a protective and idealistic stance, nostalgic for traditional community.

In contrast Klinenberg seems almost naively optimistic, trusting that as society becomes more individualistic the individual will retain an affinity for the collective. That growing independence doesn’t directly impact society’s inter-dependence.

Manufacturing Community

Klinenberg infers views held by that of Putnam are stigmatizing solo living arrangements,

Klinenberg believes the soloists will coalesce to form various urban tribes, a form of collective identity based on the similar interest, activity or perspective of the individuals. Klinenberg cites the bachelor culture of Chicago and New York in the late nineteenth century as a historic example of an urban tribe shaping the larger environment through the proliferation of bars, gentlemen’s clubs and serviced apartments.40 Klinenberg argues that the establishment of subcultures within cities provide a visible form of collective culture and variety and that this offers a flexible and social form of engagement for an individualistic society. But whether individuals will identify themselves beyond ideas of “self” remains to be seen… Will the culture, economics and politics of our cities be driven by the many lifestyles of this individualistic society?

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NOTES 1 2 3 4

21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Manufacturing Community

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Andrew Ross, The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney’s New Town, 1st ed.

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1999). 35.

Ibid.

Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town, 1st ed. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1999). 83.

Michael Bierut, “Looking for Celebration, Florida,” 1st ed., Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,, 2007), http://site.ebrary.com/lib/auckland/Doc?id=10467715. 201.

Ibid., 203.

Ibid.

Frantz and Collins, Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town: 135.

Bierut, “Looking for Celebration, Florida,” 201.

Deane Simpson, “Gerotopia,” Future Cities Laboratory Gazette, no. 1 (2011), gazette @ fcl.arch.eth.ch.

Deane Simpson, “The Villages of Florida,” Volume 27(2011): 129.

Ibid.

Deane Simpson, “Third Age Urbanism: Retirement Utopias of the Young Old” (ETH, 2010), 384.

Deane Simpson, “Deep Slice Urbanism,” Volume 29(2011): 75.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Simpson, “The Villages of Florida,” 125.

Ibid., 134.

Ibid., 135.

Ibid., 136.

Andrew D. Blechman, Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008).

11.

Simpson, “The Villages of Florida,” 125.

Blechman, Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias: 17.

Simpson, “The Villages of Florida,” 126.

Ibid., 125.

Simon Bickler and Rod Clough, “Selwyn Heights Retirement Village, Auckland: Archaeological Assessment “ Clough & Associates Ltd, http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/district/updates/t210/PM210Heritage%20Assessment. pdf.

The Selwyn Foundation, “Selwyn Heights Village,” The Selwyn Foundation, http://www.selwyncare.org.nz/Resources/library/ Gilberd_Apartments/Selwyn_Heights_Village_.pdf.

Ibid.

The Selwyn Foundation, “Meet our Independent Living Residents at Selwyn Village and Selwyn Heights,” The Selwyn Foundation, http://www.selwyncare.org.nz/157/selwyn-people.

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). 217.

Asaka Natsume, “The Design of Spaces for Community Interaction in New Housing Developments in Victoria,” in 38 South: Urban Architecture Laboratory 2002-2004, ed. Nigel Bertram, Shane Murray, and RMIT University. School of Architecture and Design. (Melbourne: RMIT University Press, 2005), 122.

Robert D. Putnam, Bowling alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

19.

Ibid., 53.

Ibid., 315.

Ibid., 321.

Ibid., 150.

Ibid., 352.

Ibid., 354.

Eric Klinenberg, “10 Ideas that are Changing Your Life: Living Alone is the New Norm,” Time, March 12th, 2012, 38.

Ibid., 40.

Eric Klinenberg, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).

16.