While I was visiting my Southern family in Alabama, my dad took me (and Joel) to see this new community that is being built up called "The Waters". It is basically an entire town being constructed from the ground up surrounding a lake (that's the water part, obvs). He took me to see it the last time I visited him, which was just about a year ago, and it looked like a skeleton of sorts. Now it looks like a really quaint little town.
The Waters
I'm not really sure how I feel about these "Stepford"-looking communities. In some ways, I find them charming, but it also seems like there is no real personality there. It is impossible for anyone's own individuality to shine through. It reminds of Celebration, Florida, a Walt Disney development that I was enamored with as a child. It looked like something out of a story book or a Disney movie. All the houses arranged in neat rows, in pastel colors with perfectly manicured lawns.
Celebration
But I went there several Christmases ago, with my childhood fantasy of what living in such a Edward Scissorhands world might be like. Let me tell you, it was like this: being in Florida at Christmas time, with people in shorts and t-shirts, walking around "Celebration Village" with holiday music blaring through strategically placed speakers, all the while spitting particles of fake snow out my mouth that I had inadvertently inhaled while gaping at the sight of such inane consumerism and bad taste. Definitely NOT what my childish mind had envisioned. Of course, that was Walt Disney's version of what an idyllic life should be like. At least the developers of The Waters have left out the speakers and snow machines. For now.
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