Is it really possible to create the perfect utopian community where everyone can live happily ever after? Well on my travels, I have been lucky enough to visit two very different communities where the residents believe they are living a utopian dream.

Celebration is a small town in America where 10,000 residents live and work in a “community bound together through the values of shared responsibility”. In the autumn the leaves fall, and at Christmas it always snows…perfect. The strange thing is this utopian town is located in Florida, a state not exactly known for its vivid autumn displays, and with an average winter temperature of 17ºC/ 62ºF a state that rarely sees any snow.

What makes Celebration special is that it is a creation of the Disney Corporation, normally better known for creating animated movies and family theme parks. Every detail of Celebration has been designed and constructed to instil a strong sense of community. For example the houses have small gardens to encourage people to use the many parks and public spaces.

Before moving to the town residents have to agree to live by a series of guidelines outlined in Celebration’s Declaration of Covenants. Amongst these covenants are regulations on the colour of the curtains, the positioning of garden gnomes and birdbaths, and restrictions that only allow two people to sleep in one bedroom. The Celebration Company also has the right to dispose of any pet which causes complaint without consulting the owner.

Like Celebration, Christiania began as an experiment to create the perfect community. Unlike Celebration, Christiania began with no rules at all. Established in 1971, on an ex-military base in the heart of Copenhagen, the community attracts everyone from artists, hippies, criminals and drug addicts.

Over the last the last three decades, and mainly due to necessity, the 1000 residents of Christiania have had to agree nine Common Laws:

Reasonable enough, though I’m not sure what they’ve got against fireworks. The difficulty that Christiania faces is that they have no real way of enforcing these simple rules. Instead they rely on honesty and a sense of cooperative civic pride to maintain order.

In the past Christiania has been tolerated by the Danish government on the basis that it is a ‘social experiment ‘. But a recent shift in political power has seen the government increasingly call for Christiania to be closed down. They are particularly unimpressed with Christiania’s hash market or as it is more commonly known - Pusher Street.

So which one of these fascinating communities has attained the utopian dream? I’ll leave it to you to judge for yourself but as I have discovered utopia is really just a state of mind.