As the old Scottish joke goes... What's the difference between Prince Charles and Walt Disney? Answer: Prince Charles sometimes wears a kilt, and Walt 'disnae'. But there are similarities as well as differences. Both, for example, have been cause for celebration. Walt Disney's ideal village in Florida, called Celebration, is a non-animated townscape of clapboard housing, manicured lawns and sunshine, where smiling is almost obligatory. Meanwhile, the celebrations over Charles' marriage, bestows authority over the faux-village of Poundbury in the new Duchess of Cornwall. Here, external TV aerials are forbidden, roads are designed to slow traffic, and dustbins are hidden from public gaze, lest the world see the 20th century volume of non-organic waste created. Both, too, are early examples of New Urbanism - the idea that through good design principles, neighbourliness can be engineered.
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