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In November 1965, Walt Disney announced he had acquired the land of his dreams, empty swamplands around Orlando Florida. Standing with the governor of Florida at a press conference, Disney hinted at his ambition to build more than theme park on the site. "We've done a lot of thinking about a model community," he told reporters, "A city of tomorrow." Disney was deliberately vague about this idea. Privately, he was calling his plan Project X. Conceived in utter secrecy, Disney was taking no chances with the pet project. He built a special backroom at WED studios to hold top-secret meetings with a core group of confidants and collaborators to discuss the experimental city wanted to erect. The scope of Project X was well beyond anything Disney had previously envisioned. The celebrated mogul wanted to try his hand at running a private community of 20,000 inhabitants living and working with the latest cutting-edge technology. What did Disney's vision of Project X look like? Unfortunately we cannot show you images from Project X because they are copyrighted by the Walt Disney Company and are not available for commercial use. But picture this: a series of high-speed monorails whisking commuters to work in skyscraper-dominated downtown hub cities where "People Movers" move pedestrians from destination to destination; suburbs spread out in a radial design with greenbelt areas and parks; and lots and lots of high-tech toys. In early 1966 Disney made a promotional film about dream city for the purposes of enticing high-level corporate execs at General Motors, General Electric and Xerox to jump aboard the project. Standing with a pointer in his hand and a giant map behind him, "Uncle" Walt explained his ideas. The city, which he dubbed EPCOT (or Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), would feature "new ideas and technologies" emerging "from the creative centers of American industry." Disney explained his desire was that EPCOT "would never be completed" and would "be producing, testing and demonstrating." Given the state of his health, Disney's aspiration to create a perpetual monument to his vision was understandable. The popular entertainment/entrepreneur was dying of lung cancer in 1966 and he knew did not have long to live. EPCOT kept Disney distracted during his bout with cancer. Almost to the end of his life, he toyed with ideas for EPCOT, sketching ideas about garbage disposal schemes and public transportation systems. Disney died on December 15, 1966. EPCOT survived but in far-less grandiose fashion. Roy Disney, his brother, announced that the Disney company would build an "entertainment center" based on Disney's dying wishes which would include the world's first "glass-domed city." On October 1, 1982, when EPCOT finally opened, Disney's "city of tomorrow" was nowhere to be seen. A geodesic dome stood at the center of the theme-park exhibition but the overaching theme was global not local, a permanent World's Fair with only a hint of futurism. Years later an echo of Project X emerged, the "unincorporated" planned community of Celebration, Florida, a town, population 20,000, where the Walt Disney Company owned office facilities and golf courses. Opening in a blaze of publicity in 1996, Celebration was a throwback to another time. Community associations were assigned to oversee its upscale neighborhoods. An interesting experiment in planning, it is a far cry from Disney's blueprint of the future. Over 35 years later, Walt Disney's most ambitious scheme is still a "wish upon a star." The "real" EPCOT remains frozen in time, a series of blueprints, sketches and drawings of a community "where people live a life they can't find anywhere else in the world."
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Eureka! Catch the promotional film
Disney made just before his death in 1966. Watch with fascination
as Uncle
Walt spells out
all the glorious details of his master plan. Only at Waltopia.com: 