COCKTAIL PARTY CITY Conference «THE PRIVATIZATION OF CITIES IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE», La Sorbonne 2004.

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In 1964, the architect Charles Moore went on a journey through Southern California He found out that the only place in the area which had the characteristics of a public space was Disneyland. But Disneyland is the opposite of an european public space : it is built in the fields, out of the city ; surrounded by a wall ; its access is restricted ; private and frequented only by the people willing to pay. It succeeds in creating a pedestrian promenade, and the urban qualities one can usually find in a traditionnal city, in a context (LA) generally seen as inhumane. In LA, the artificial city is more humane than the real one. Moore's paradoxal conclusion was that, now " You have to pay for the public life ". The french sociologists Anne-Marie Eyssartel et Bernard Rochette have compared theme parks to islands, because they are autonomous enclaves, creating their own world, isolated from their urban context. When you enter the gate to Disneyland, you leave the city to get into another world. Like a traditional city, this world is organized around a center (the castle), which leads to the different themes. The strong center reminds the visitor that he is not at the periphery of the real world, but at the center of an " invented world " .

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