WI: EPCOT by Disney was built

For context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)

Basically, it was a city conceptualised by Walt Disney who considered the American City of the day to be too hectic, disorganised, dirty and crime ridden.

Therefore, using his and his teams experience from building disneyland, they had come up with the plan for the EPCOT project, which was planned to be built between Orlando and Kissimmee in Florida on about 113sq km (or about 43.62 sq mi) of property. There was even an incredibly detailed design which included these key features:

  • Radial Design
  • Urban centre and its towering hotel (probably the same height as most mega talls today)
  • Green Belt
  • Industrial Park
  • Monorail line (with 5 stations) and people movers
So my question is, what if EPCOT actually was built, what would this modern city look like, what fate would it share, would it become a succesful thriving metropolis or would it become a ghost town (this is assuming that they are able to keep to the original design as close as possible, i.e. monorail and all).
 
without disney backing I don't see it happening. he'll try but without The Mouse? It's a nonstarter imo

Lets assume disney lets it pass and backs it (maybe even with government assitance) because they want their own city for whatever reasons (much like Toyota in Aichi,Japan) and it becomes the headquarters for disney and many of their subsidiary companies (basically, the project gets off the ground and actually gets constructed in full, maybe Walt Disney gets his extra 15 years he so desired to build the thing i.e. doesn't become a chain smoker for whatever reason and therefore doesn't get lung cancer).

What would occur then.
 
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there WB, fox and paramount..it will pass regardless
WB, Fox and paramount have money, yes but not disney's status as a de facto minister of culture. Without that centralizing force in US culture things diverge quickly past early 80s imo.
 
The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow had no chance of succeeding, for a number of reasons, the biggest issue being one that has plagued Disney for decades: chasing the future.

Ever since Disneyland opened in 1955 with Tomorrowland as one of its six major lands, this has been a problem. Initially, Tomorrowland was set in 1987, the year Halley's Comet was set to return. While that may seem laughable today, keep in mind that the 2030s and 2040s seem like far-off neverlands to us in 2019. But Walt and the Imagineers immediately ran into problems with the land, mainly revolving around the question of "How do we create the future... today?", because if you create the future, then isn't it the present?

During the 1950s and 1960s, Disney made an honest effort to create a Tomorrowland that felt like the future. Things like the PeopleMover, the Monorail, Adventure Thru Inner Space the Submarine Voyage, the House of the Future, and even the Matterhorn Bobsleds (part of the massive 1957 additions to Tomorrowland, and featuring the world's first roller coaster with tubular metal tracks, enabling smoother and more drastic turns) and Autopia (Los Angeles' freeways were new and exciting at the time) all capture that feeling. When the EPCOT Center first opened, it felt like Tomorrowland's perfected version in the Future World section of the park.

But keeping up with the future is not easy. Inside of Spaceship Earth, the final scene representing computer technology changes seemingly with every refurbishment, due to it advancing so quickly. Perhaps the best example of failing to keep up with the future is the Monsanto House of the Future, which was just inside Tomorrowland's entrance from 1957 to 1967. It was never updated, and by the time it closed, the main selling points of its futurism--plastics and a microwave, among other things--had become commonplace.

Picture that on a scale times a thousand, and you have Walt Disney's original idea for E.P.C.O.T. It was supposed to be a place where all the technology would be cutting-edge, from your wristwatch to your automobile. It was to be a playground for tech companies to test out their newest technologies by providing E.P.C.O.T. with prototypes. All of E.P.C.O.T. So every time a new type of refrigerator is made, a company would send thousands of prototypes to Florida, to be installed in every single home in the city. By the time that could happen, it's likely a new, better refrigerator would already be on the market by another, or even the same, company. It's the definition of throwing money down the drain.

While we're on the topic of money, E.P.C.O.T. was going to be exorbitantly expensive. Nevermind building an entire city in a Florida swamp--Walt wanted something like two layers of streets underneath the city, so that no vehicles would have to travel on the surface and risk hitting pedestrians. This was something he would not back down from. The only trouble is, Florida has a ridiculously high water table. It's the reason why WDW's Pirates of the Caribbean only had one waterfall drop, while Disneyland's has two: if they dug down any further, they'd hit water. So, with that in mind, to construct the tunnels under E.P.C.O.T., Disney would have to build them above the ground, and then build the entire city on top of that. They used this tactic to build the Magic Kingdom's Utilidors, a maze of hallways and rooms under the park to provide maintenance and other things without guests seeing that and ruining their immersion. This made MK infinitely more expensive to build, and by the time the actual EPCOT Center was built in 1980, the idea was scrapped and Disney built a complex of buildings in a circle surrounding the park, allowing cast members to enter from behind the buildings outside of the park. So, building E.P.C.O.T. with not one, but two Utilidors beneath it is one hell of a task, and something that would, in the end, provide very little bang for Disney's buck. And since this is 1970s Disney we're talking about--the same Disney that had been hovering around the "in the red" mark since Steamboat Willie, no bang for your buck is a death sentence.

The original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow is a utopia. And utopias don't--no, can't--exist. As a lifelong admirer of Walt Disney, that is something painful for me to say, but it's the hard truth. If Disney had gone through with building E.P.C.O.T. with Walt still dying in 1966, the company would be bankrupt or bought out by the Bicentennial. If Walt had still been around... not much would have changed, sadly. This was one of the only times the legend bit off more than he could chew. The only thing E.P.C.O.T.'s construction would accomplish is creating a massive, city-sized blot of ink on Walt Disney's otherwise clean ledger of success, and leaving a vision of a utopia that would never be rotting in a swamp.

The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow would be a failure if it was made. There's no getting around it. It would fall hard, and take down Disney, and Walt's legacy, with it.
 
No disney and we'd have a very visible example of managerialism leading only to garbage fires in the form of EPCOT to point to right in the US. A much better world if they'd tried it.
 
No disney and we'd have a very visible example of managerialism leading only to garbage fires in the form of EPCOT to point to right in the US. A much better world if they'd tried it.
I'd have to disagree with you there. It's true that Disney is absorbing every entertainment company it can see these days, but they're probably the best company to do so. Someone was going to do it eventually, and I'd much rather an entertainment company like Disney buy out all of the world of entertainment than some faceless megacorporation like Comcast or Viacom or News Corp. or Sony or AT&T do it instead.

And then, if Disney died in the 1970s, childhoods would be ruined. No good Disney movie will have been made since 1967, and without Disney, there's no Pixar, no Dreamworks, no nothing. Decades' worth of excellent films and theme park attractions never existing is not a world I can, in any way, see as better than our own.
 
Nah, only The Mouse has the legitimacy needed to get away with all those buyouts. Nobody else could. Americans love disney for whatever bizarre reasons.
 
Nah, only The Mouse has the legitimacy needed to get away with all those buyouts. Nobody else could. Americans love disney for whatever bizarre reasons.
Probably because the first movies we ever see are usually Disney films, and the place everyone--and I mean everyone--wants to go on vacation to is Walt Disney World.

Other companies could definitely go the same lengths Disney has. Viacom, for one, before it split up, was pretty huge and could have kept on expanding. And TimeWarner was massive as well.
 
Nah, only The Mouse has the legitimacy needed to get away with all those buyouts. Nobody else could. Americans love disney for whatever bizarre reasons.
I doubt that is not how business works, anyone else would do and modern washington don't give a damn, only Sanders might care those monopolies
 
Hell, it wasn't even possible in @HeX's Disney TL, Laughin' Place, so I doubt it happens in any TL...

To paraphrase a meme, the cost was just too damned high for Disney...
 
The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow had no chance of succeeding, for a number of reasons, the biggest issue being one that has plagued Disney for decades: chasing the future.

Ever since Disneyland opened in 1955 with Tomorrowland as one of its six major lands, this has been a problem. Initially, Tomorrowland was set in 1987, the year Halley's Comet was set to return. While that may seem laughable today, keep in mind that the 2030s and 2040s seem like far-off neverlands to us in 2019. But Walt and the Imagineers immediately ran into problems with the land, mainly revolving around the question of "How do we create the future... today?", because if you create the future, then isn't it the present?

During the 1950s and 1960s, Disney made an honest effort to create a Tomorrowland that felt like the future. Things like the PeopleMover, the Monorail, Adventure Thru Inner Space the Submarine Voyage, the House of the Future, and even the Matterhorn Bobsleds (part of the massive 1957 additions to Tomorrowland, and featuring the world's first roller coaster with tubular metal tracks, enabling smoother and more drastic turns) and Autopia (Los Angeles' freeways were new and exciting at the time) all capture that feeling. When the EPCOT Center first opened, it felt like Tomorrowland's perfected version in the Future World section of the park.

But keeping up with the future is not easy. Inside of Spaceship Earth, the final scene representing computer technology changes seemingly with every refurbishment, due to it advancing so quickly. Perhaps the best example of failing to keep up with the future is the Monsanto House of the Future, which was just inside Tomorrowland's entrance from 1957 to 1967. It was never updated, and by the time it closed, the main selling points of its futurism--plastics and a microwave, among other things--had become commonplace.

Picture that on a scale times a thousand, and you have Walt Disney's original idea for E.P.C.O.T. It was supposed to be a place where all the technology would be cutting-edge, from your wristwatch to your automobile. It was to be a playground for tech companies to test out their newest technologies by providing E.P.C.O.T. with prototypes. All of E.P.C.O.T. So every time a new type of refrigerator is made, a company would send thousands of prototypes to Florida, to be installed in every single home in the city. By the time that could happen, it's likely a new, better refrigerator would already be on the market by another, or even the same, company. It's the definition of throwing money down the drain.

While we're on the topic of money, E.P.C.O.T. was going to be exorbitantly expensive. Nevermind building an entire city in a Florida swamp--Walt wanted something like two layers of streets underneath the city, so that no vehicles would have to travel on the surface and risk hitting pedestrians. This was something he would not back down from. The only trouble is, Florida has a ridiculously high water table. It's the reason why WDW's Pirates of the Caribbean only had one waterfall drop, while Disneyland's has two: if they dug down any further, they'd hit water. So, with that in mind, to construct the tunnels under E.P.C.O.T., Disney would have to build them above the ground, and then build the entire city on top of that. They used this tactic to build the Magic Kingdom's Utilidors, a maze of hallways and rooms under the park to provide maintenance and other things without guests seeing that and ruining their immersion. This made MK infinitely more expensive to build, and by the time the actual EPCOT Center was built in 1980, the idea was scrapped and Disney built a complex of buildings in a circle surrounding the park, allowing cast members to enter from behind the buildings outside of the park. So, building E.P.C.O.T. with not one, but two Utilidors beneath it is one hell of a task, and something that would, in the end, provide very little bang for Disney's buck. And since this is 1970s Disney we're talking about--the same Disney that had been hovering around the "in the red" mark since Steamboat Willie, no bang for your buck is a death sentence.

The original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow is a utopia. And utopias don't--no, can't--exist. As a lifelong admirer of Walt Disney, that is something painful for me to say, but it's the hard truth. If Disney had gone through with building E.P.C.O.T. with Walt still dying in 1966, the company would be bankrupt or bought out by the Bicentennial. If Walt had still been around... not much would have changed, sadly. This was one of the only times the legend bit off more than he could chew. The only thing E.P.C.O.T.'s construction would accomplish is creating a massive, city-sized blot of ink on Walt Disney's otherwise clean ledger of success, and leaving a vision of a utopia that would never be rotting in a swamp.

The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow would be a failure if it was made. There's no getting around it. It would fall hard, and take down Disney, and Walt's legacy, with it.

So in short, the city would have most likely have been in imminent decline because of flooded roads and most likely the prototype idea would have failed (especially in the modern day where every launch is done online). Therefore becoming a city of the past very quickly and almost a time capsule for the 70's vision of the 'future' and probably becoming an abandoned city (though i'm sure someone would live there).
 
So in short, the city would have most likely have been in imminent decline because of flooded roads and most likely the prototype idea would have failed (especially in the modern day where every launch is done online). Therefore becoming a city of the past very quickly and almost a time capsule for the 70's vision of the 'future' and probably becoming an abandoned city (though i'm sure someone would live there).
Really, it would be a time capsule of the 1950s view of the future, since that was where Walt found his utopia. But, in essence, you are correct.
 
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