From Kansas to Oz: Seaside,Florida,and the Small Town in late-twentieth century American collective memory

Abstract

The New Urbanist town of Seaside, Florida, was envisioned by developer Robert Davis and planned by architects Andres Duany and Elisabeth Plater-Zyberk in the early 1980s with the goal of fostering community by simulating the design of historical American towns. By examining periodicals and other news items reporting on Seaside in its early decades, I demonstrate how Seaside's landscape not only mimicked small towns but evoked the collective memory of small-town America in the minds of its beholders. My study of collective memory through Seaside upholds notions of the historical small town as a “nation form” in the American imagination as put forth by scholars like Ryan Poll. I then interrogate the inclusiveness of this nation form, engaging with scholarship denouncing Seaside's call for a simpler time. Finally, by examining how Seaside's visitors harmonize Seaside's playful artificiality with the historic small-town ideal, I point towards the growing role of Hollywood in influencing the representation of the small town in American collective memory.