The neotraditional resort development of Seaside, Florida merits special attention from geographers and urban planners because of the normative claims made by its designers and because it has garnered widespread attention from practising architects, planners, anti social critics, Under the banners of ‘neotraditionalism’ and ‘community planning’ the principles implemented in Seaside have also been employed in numerous other developments in North America. Central to Seaside's appeal and normative content is the deliberate attempt to resurrect an idealised past of uniquely American communitarianism through the skillful manipulation of urban form. We develop our critique of neotraditionalism through a deconstructive analysis of the physical and ideological spaces of Seaside. Specifically, we discuss the origin and development of Seaside, the centrality of its urban and architectural codes, the paradoxical deployment of public and private spaces, and the emergence of a distinctively neotraditional subject. Our basic claim is that neotraditionalism is actually a carefully veiled form of what Foster has called “postmodernism of reaction”.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonK, 1991, “Is Seaside too good to be true?”, in Seaside: Making a Town in America Eds MohneyDEasterlingK (Princeton Architectural Press, New York) pp 42–47
2.
BaudrillardJ, 1986Amérique (Editions Grasset et Fasquelle, Paris)
3.
BermanM, 1982All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (Penguin Books, New York)
4.
BondiL, 1992, “Gender symbols and urban landscapes”Progress in Human Geography16157–170
5.
BourdieuP, 1990The Logic of Practise translated by NiceR (Polity Press, Cambridge)
6.
BoyerM C, 1992, “Cities for sale: Merchandising history at south street seaport”, in Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space Ed. SorkinM (Noonday Press, New York) pp 181–204
7.
BoyerM C, 1995, “The great frameup: Fantastic appearances in contemporary spatial politics”, in Spatial Practises: Critical Explorations in Social/Spatial Theory Eds LiggettHPerryD (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 81–109
8.
Buck-MorssS, 1989The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
9.
CobbJ C, 1982The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development 1936–1980 (Louisiana State University Press, New Orleans, LA)
10.
CrawfordM, 1992, “The world in a shopping mall”, in Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space Ed. SorkinM (Noonday Press, New York) pp 3–30
11.
DatelR, 1990, “Southern regionalism and historic preservation in Charleston, South Carolina, 1920–1940”Journal of Historical Geography16197–215
12.
DavisM, 1992City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (Vintage Books, New York)
13.
DearM, 1986, “Postmodernism and planning”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space4367–384
14.
de CerteauM, 1984The Practise of Everyday Life (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
15.
DerridaJ, 1978Writing and Difference translated by BassA (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
16.
DuanyAPlater-ZyberkE, 1992, “The second coming of the American small town”Wilson Quarterly1619–50
17.
DuncanJDuncanN, 1992, “Roland Barthes and the secret histories of landscape”, in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape Eds BarnesTDuncanJ (Routledge, New York) pp 18–37
18.
DunlopB, 1989, “Coming of age”Architectural Record17796–101
19.
EasterlingK, 1991, “Public enterprise”, in Seaside: Making a Town in America Eds MohneyDEasterlingK (Princeton Architectural Press, New York) pp 48–60
20.
FalconerK, 1992, “Interviews with residents, workers and others at Seaside, Florida”, unpublished research notes available from the authors
21.
Falconer Al-HindiKStaddonC, 1996, “The family of neotraditional planning: evidence from Seaside, Florida”, paper presented to the Association of American Geographers, Charlotte, North Carolina; copy available from the authors
22.
FeldmanRJaffeM, 1992, “Reformation and counter reformation”Inland Architect3662–67
23.
FellmanJGetisAGetisJ, 1995Human Geography4th edition (Wm C Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA)
24.
FikTAmeyRMaleckiE, 1991, “Changing employment profiles and growth: An economic base study of Florida counties, 1982–1987”Growth and Change2286–104
25.
FischlerR, 1995, “Strategy and history in professional planning practise: Planning as world making”, in Spatial Practises: Critical Explorations in Social/Spatial Theory Eds LiggettHPerryD C (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 13–58
26.
FosterH, 1983, “Postmodernism: A Preface”, in The Anti-aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture Ed. FosterH (Bay Press, Port Townsend, WA) pp ix–xvi
27.
FoucaultM, 1971The Order of Things (Pantheon Books, New York)
28.
FoucaultM, 1980Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 Ed, GordonC (Pantheon Books, New York)
29.
FoucaultM, 1982, “Afterward: The subject and power”, in Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneuties2nd edition, Eds DreyfusHRabinowP (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1L) pp 208–228
30.
GoodmanR, 1971After the Planners (Simon and Schuster, New York)
31.
GregoryD, 1990, “Chinatown part three: Soja and the missing spaces of social theory”Strategies373–104
32.
GregoryDUrryJ, 1985Social Relations and Spatial Structures (St Martin's Press, New York)
33.
HarveyD, 1989The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Basil Blackwell, New York)
34.
HorkheimerMAdornoT, 1991Dialectic of Enlightenment first published 1943 (Continuum Press, New York)
35.
HuxtableA L, 1992, “Inventing American reality”New York Review of Books39(20) 24–29
36.
JacobsJ, 1961The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, New York)
37.
JoynerL, 1984, “Living lazy on the Gulf”Southern Living June, pages 102–105
38.
KellnerD, 1989Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD)
39.
KelloggJ, 1982, “The formation of black residential neighbourhoods in Lexington, Kentucky, 1865–1887”Journal of Southern History4821–52
40.
KnoxP, 1991, “The restless urban landscape: Economic and sociocultural change and the transformation of metropolitan Washington, DC”Annals of the Association of American Geographers81181–209
41.
KriegerA, 1991, “Since (and before) Seaside”, in Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Towns and Town-making Principles Eds KriegerALennertzW (Rizzoli, New York) pp 9–16
42.
KriegerALennertzW (Eds), 1991Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Towns and Town making Principles (Rizzoli, New York)
43.
KrierL, 1991, “Afterword”, in Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Towns and Town-making Principles Eds KriegerALennertzW (Rizzoli, New York)
44.
KunstlerW, 1993The Geography of Nowhere (Vintage, New York)
45.
LangdonP, 1988, “A good place to live”Atlantic Monthly26139–60
46.
LawsonC, 1995, “Disney's newest show is a town”New York Times 16 November, pages B1, B6
47.
LeinbergerC, 1988, “The six types of urban village cores”Urban Land47(5) 24–27
48.
LeslieD A, 1993, “Femininity, post-Fordism, and the ‘new traditionalism’ ”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space11689–708
49.
LeyD, 1989, “Modernism, postmodernism and the struggle for place”, in The Power of Place Eds AgnewJDuncanJ (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY) pp 44–65
50.
LeyDMillsC, 1993, “Can there be a postmodernism of resistance in the urban landscape?”, in The Restless Urban Landscape Ed. KnoxP (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ) pp 255–278
51.
McCannE, 1995, “Neotraditional developments: The anatomy of an urban form”Urban Geography16210–233
52.
MasseyD, 1994, “A place called home?”, in Space, Place and Gender (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) pp 157–173
53.
MohneyD, 1991, “Interview with Andres Duany”, in Seaside: Making a Town in America Eds MohneyDEasterlingK (Princeton Architectural Press, New York) pp 62–73
54.
MohneyDEasterlingK (Eds), 1991Seaside: Making a Town in America (Princeton Architectural Press, New York)
55.
PinnellP, 1991, “Organon”, in Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Towns and Town-making Principles Eds KriegerALennertzW (Rizzoli, New York) pp 105–108
56.
PredA, 1990, “In other wor(l)ds: Fragmented and integrated observations on gendered languages, gendered spaces and local transformation”Antipode22(1) 33–52
57.
RelphE, 1987The Modern Urban Landscape (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD)
58.
Rolleston1, 1989, “The politics of quotation: Walter Benjamin's arcades project”Publications of the Modern Language Association of America10413–27
59.
SCDC, 1989–95Seaside Times Seaside Community Development Corporation (available from Seaside Community Development Corporation, Seaside, FL 32459 or from the authors)
60.
SCDC, 1993, Promotional brochure, Seaside Community Development Corporation (available from SCDC, Seaside, FL 32459)
61.
ScheinR H, 1993, “Representing urban America: 19th century views of landscape, space and power”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space117–21
62.
Seaside Institute, 1994, “The Seaside Institute”, pamphlet, Seaside Institute, Seaside, FL
63.
Seaside Town Council, 1992Seaside Community Report June and October, available from Seaside Community Development Corporation, Seaside, FL 32459 or from the authors
64.
SmithJ, 1992, “The slightly different thing that is said: Writing the aesthetic experience”, in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape Eds BarnesTDuncanJ (Routledge, New York) pp 73–85
65.
SmithN, 1993, “Reasserting spatial difference” ANY Architechture New York122–23
66.
SojaE, 1989Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Verso, New York)
67.
SorkinM (Ed.), 1992Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (Hill and Wang, New York)
68.
TillK, 1993, “Neotraditional towns and urban villages: The cultural production of a geography of ‘otherness' ”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space11709–732
69.
US Department of Commerce, 1990Census of Population and Housing, Summary Social, Economic and Housing Characteristics Bureau of the Census (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC)
70.
WaltonJ K, 1983The English Seaside Resort: A Social History 1750–1914 (Leicester University Press, London)
71.
WhiteR R, 1993, “Editorial: Convergent trends in architecture and urban environmental planning”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space11375–378
72.
WrightG, 1986Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (Basic Books, New York)
73.
YoungI M, 1990Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
