On a trip to Disney World?s Magic Kingdom with some friends a couple of years ago, I made my usual pilgrimage to ?It?s a Small World? ? a smarmy, but iconic ride that reminds me of my trips to the park as a child. As we floated along in our boat watching crudely mechanical children in various ethnic dress dance to a tune that would drive me crazy for the rest of the day, we noticed a small, grinning clown high above our heads in a hot air balloon holding a sign that read ?Help Me? in big letters. On probably dozens of trips through the ride over the course of my life, I had never noticed him. He seemed oddly and uncomfortably out of place - the one sane character in a bizarre third-world like sweatshop of brainwashed kids forced to dance and sing to the same stupid song over and over, day after day, pleading for rescue. Recently, I?ve begun to relate to his brave attempt at rescue from his artificial world.
Often, South Walton life seems a lot like what I imagine life would be like in the Magic Kingdom. We have almost no crime or litter. Like the Magic Kingdom, we lack Epcot?s cultural diversity, but are much more fun for kids. Perfect little towns with instantly created cultures and instant native landscaping seem to spring up overnight, built by the tiny gloved hands of new-urban elves living in workshops somewhere under the snow white dunes. Community after community has been created by marketers and developers for people looking for escape from the reality of their imperfect cities back home. Though it may strike some as blasphemous, sometimes, like the little clown floating high above the heads of the tourists, I find myself desperate for imperfection and flaw, the odd and eccentric, a totally different song to dance to. The problem is that genuine communities aren?t planned ? they spring up naturally from deep wells of interaction between individually unique people and their habits and customs, not through sales brochures or board approved architecture. Perfect cultures and communities are artificially created because they appeal to people searching for escape. But like any one of Disney?s created Kingdoms, their layers can be shallow, beautiful but thin as a bubble, creating the instantly familiar without the long, sometimes centuries-old history that building a ?real sense of place? requires. Real worlds aren?t made by Disney Imagineers, residential developers or tourist councils. Sometimes the thin wears thin.
With area real estate costing a fortune by most standards and more and more second home buyers drawn to our safe and sanitized perfection, I?m afraid we may be losing the sense of real community and artistic diversity that was once an important part of what made South Walton so special. As we attempt to appeal almost completely to the needs and wants of our guests, we may be neglecting the needs of the cast members. Few artists and musicians can now afford our cost of living, so much of our local art and music is becoming familiar and predictable. Young adults, the life-blood of any healthy community?s future and creativity have little hope of good employment or affordable housing. The prohibitive cost of leases, commercial real estate and the inability to pay employees a living wage is stifling to entrepreneurial spirit. We live in a community that is constantly on stage, on its very best behavior at all times for broad consumptive appeal. Even bedroom communities need kitchens and bathrooms to function with genuine civility.
Genuine communities aren?t created with slogans and festivals anymore than they are with mechanical children dressed like Eskimos or Kabuki actors. I?m afraid that unless we and our leaders spend as much time addressing the real needs of our own small world as much as we do the needs of those who visit and invest in it, we?re going to end up like that poor desperate little clown in the hot air balloon, high above the tourists, wearing a colorful costume and a brightly painted smile that masks a very desperate plea for a community that?s a bit more real and genuine.
My vote is still for Kurt. ;-)