Magic Lands

Disciplines History California & Western History

About the Book

The American West conjures up images of pastoral tranquility and wide open spaces, but by 1970 the Far West was the most urbanized section of the country. Exploring four intriguing cityscapes—Disneyland, Stanford Industrial Park, Sun City, and the 1962 Seattle World's Fair—John Findlay shows how each created a sense of cohesion and sustained people's belief in their superior urban environment. This first book-length study of the urban West after 1940 argues that Westerners deliberately tried to build cities that differed radically from their eastern counterparts.

In 1954, Walt Disney began building the world's first theme park, using Hollywood's movie-making techniques. The creators of Stanford Industrial Park were more hesitant in their approach to a conceptually organized environment, but by the mid-1960s the Park was the nation's prototypical "research park" and the intellectual downtown for the high-technology region that became Silicon Valley.

In 1960, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Del E. Webb built Sun City, the largest, most influential retirement community in the United States. Another innovative cityscape arose from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and provided a futuristic, somewhat fanciful vision of modern life.

These four became "magic lands" that provided an antidote to the apparent chaos of their respective urban milieus. Exemplars of a new lifestyle, they are landmarks on the changing cultural landscape of postwar America.

About the Author

John M. Findlay is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington and the author of People of Chance: Gambling in American Society from Jamestown to Las Vegas (1986).

             LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
             ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
             INTRODUCTION

           1
The Explosive Metropolis:
Urbanization in the Far West After 1940
           Growth and Its Discontents
           People and Cities in Motion
           Cities out of Control
           Chaos, Community, and Culture
             in the Urban West

           2
Disneyland: The Happiest Place on Earth
           The Urbanization of Disneyland
           A Controlled Western Environment
           To Soothe and to Sell: Managing
             Customers at Disneyland
           Disneyland in the Customer's Mind
           Disneyland and Southern California
           A Disney World

           3
Stanford Industrial Park: Downtown for Silicon Valley
          The Origins of the Park
          A Suburban Campus for Industry
          From "Garden of the World"
            to Silicon Valley
          Urban Order in Silicon Valley

          4
Sun City, Arizona: New Town for Old Folks
          Retirement in Postwar America
          Packaging Paradise: The Beginning
            of Sun City
          From Retirement Community
            to Resort Town
          The Retirees' Community Becomes
            a Hometown
          Growing Together: Sun City
            and Phoenix

          5
The Seattle World's Fair of 1962:
Downtown and Suburbs in the Space Age
          The Downtown Origins of the Fair
          An American Temple of Science
          Suburbia at Century 21
          The Future According to 1962
          Century 21's Legacy to Seattle

          6
Western Cityscapes and American Culture
          The Urban West as a Chosen Land
          Constructing Meaning in the
            Western Metropolis
          Building a Legible City
          A Sense of Place

           LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
           NOTES
           BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
           INDEX