CBS’ There Goes the Neighborhood encloses families behind 20-foot wall; hosted by Idol’s Matt Rogers

CBS’ neighborhood competition series Block Party has been renamed There Goes the Neighborhood, and for it, producers constructed 20-foot-tall walls around houses in Kennesaw, Georgia.

In a brief press release, CBS describes the seven-episode series, which debuts Aug. 9 at 9 p.m. ET, as “the ultimate social and family bonding experiment” in which they are “cut off from the outside world as it becomes family vs. family in a competition to win upgrades for their lives and their homes.” They have “virtually no electricity and no ability to text message, watch television or surf the internet, [so] these families will be forced to reconnect and work together as a team.”

Thus, the show is basically Big Brother but with families living in their actual homes. The families will compete in challenges for prizes and will vote each other out, and the winning family gets an absurdly cheap $250,000; even Big Brother gives half a million. It’s hosted by Matt Rogers, who has also hosted Discovery’s Really Big Things and was a finalist during American Idol 3.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rodney Ho has photos of the walled neighborhood and details from a press conference this morning, including that thefamilies include “a single mom, an inter-racial couple and a lesbian couple” and “kids as young as six.” The three-week shoot ends this coming weekend.