Would EPCOT Have Worked As Walt Intended?
EPCOT recently turned 40, but that milestone only tells part of the story.
Walt Disney himself announced the project in 1966, mere months before his death.
Obviously, the loss of the company’s founder and creative force upset the balance within The Walt Disney Company.
For more than a decade, nobody could make forward progress on his final dream, a capitalist utopia that people would call the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
The EPCOT we visit today bears little resemblance to the one that Disney announced. So, I sometimes wonder a simple question.
Would EPCOT have worked as Walt Disney envisioned it?
Proof of Concept Part I – The World Showcase
As Walt and Roy Disney’s reputation grew as businesspeople, they turned into world travelers.
During the course of their visits, they learned about world cultures and became enamored of many, especially ones in Europe.
Walt Disney also experienced a seminal moment while working on the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Disney operated attractions at several pavilions here and thereby maintained a presence throughout the two-year event.
Since the entrepreneur attended the fair often, he grew to admire the cultural melting pot on display. People around the globe visited this fair.
Disney believed that his EPCOT project could include something similar, a kind of daily World’s Fair.
For all of EPCOT’s failings in meeting Walt Disney’s vision, it absolutely drilled this part.
The World Showcase has anchored EPCOT since its 1982 opening. It has proven the most popular part of the park for 40 years and counting.
Walt Disney understood the need for inclusion and acceptance of other cultures. His wisdom on this subject remains progressive to this day.
Proof of Concept Part II – A Disney-Based City
At its core, the “community of tomorrow” would have worked as a capitalist city. You can think of it as a strategically plotted community with its own laws.
If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should. The Reedy Creek Improvement District has functioned as its own district since a bipartisan agreement in the 1960s.
For nearly 60 years now, Disney officials have called the shots with regard to land development and maintenance.
Until quite recently Florida government officials have happily left Disney alone to do whatever is needed to keep the tourist money flowing.
Without going into detail on the recent unpleasantness, let’s just say that the system has worked flawlessly for generations.
At its heart, Walt Disney World is a city within a city. Analysts often compare it to Vatican City, which resides in Rome.
Disney fans struggle to differentiate where the Disney Bubble ends and Orlando begins. The integration of the Disney campus is that seamless.
Each day, hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to Walt Disney World , which may as well be the city of Disney, Florida.
Proof of Concept Part III – The City Center
In his EPCOT announcement, Uncle Walt described a city center, the so-called hub of this community.
Disney stated that “the pedestrian will be king” in this location, as nobody will have a need to drive anywhere.
This core section of EPCOT would entertain most guests while residents would reach here from other parts of the community.
I don’t think you need to know much about Walt Disney World and Orlando to recognize that we have this today.
In fact, I just referenced the Disney Bubble. That’s what the Disney campus is, a place where tourists visit Orlando without ever experiencing most of it.
The Disney part of the region is all-encompassing, a self-sustaining community that outsiders are desperate to visit.
Meanwhile, locals love Walt Disney World as well. They just don’t live there. Instead, they reach the parks from other parts of Orlando.
If Walt Disney were alive today, he’d be frustrated by the omnipresence of buses, something we’ll discuss in a moment.
However, the futurist would take pride in how places like Disney Springs function as hubs for tourists and locals alike. That’s what EPCOT was supposed to be!
The Flaws with EPCOT Part I – A Labor-Based Community
Look, there’s a core problem with Walt Disney’s projected EPCOT business model.
Everyone who lived at EPCOT would have been required to keep a job there.
People make lots of jokes about late-stage capitalism, but this conversation has nothing to do with economic challenges.
Instead, the basic piece of logic here is that people get fired, find new jobs, and/or retire.
We’re 40 years into EPCOT now. Let’s presume that the city had unfolded as Walt Disney had envisioned.
A significant percentage of the original workers would either have reached or be quickly approaching retirement. What happens to them then?
These workers would have given their adult lives to EPCOT. Once they were no longer capable/desirous of keeping the job, would they have faced eviction?
Capitalist utopias aren’t a thing because of dilemmas like this one. Something that sounds good on paper rarely works well in practice.
I’m confident that Disney would have adjusted his plans to allow for such circumstances, but I’m only scratching the surface with the flaws.
In many ways, the idea of a work-based residential community is as flawed as the barter system in economics.
The bald guy doesn’t need the services of the hair stylist, and so everything falls apart. EPCOT would have faced similar challenges, some of which were unsolvable.
The Flaws with EPCOT Part II – The Transportation
Remember those buses I mentioned? You’ll be hard-pressed to traverse the Disney campus without the use of some form of transportation.
Those words would act as a knife to the heart of Uncle Walt. One of the intrinsic parts of his EPCOT plan involved the elimination of traffic.
A Southern California resident, Disney knew all too well the frustrations of gridlock. If he hated traffic in the 1960s, I cannot imagine his fury today.
The strategist plotted a community that would eschew cars and other automotive vehicles in favor of monorails and the PeopleMover.
Yes, that ride at Tomorrowland anchors an entire citywide transportation system in some alternate reality where EPCOT exists as Uncle Walt intended.
However, that place isn’t any better than this one and may be far worse.
We’ve since learned that monorails are extremely expensive to maintain. Disney’s current fleet dates back to the 1980s.
Every few years, cast members update the monorail trams and tracks to keep everyone safe. They’re in desperate need of a dramatic overhaul, though.
Management chooses not to do that because a new monorail fleet would cost as much as an E-ticket attraction. Most people would rather have the new ride.
Meanwhile, the PeopleMover has existed in the wild in another place, a Houston airport. Over time, the officials there have phased it out.
That approach has occurred because the PeopleMover has limitations with its design. Sadly, it’s just not well-suited to handle mass transit, something it kills me to acknowledge.
So, Walt Disney World has turned to conventional transportation methods for the most part. The grand ambitions from EPCOT proved too optimistic on this count.
The Flaws with EPCOT Part III – Competition
Finally, we have one aspect that Walt Disney never considered.
While critics deride some of Disney’s management practices that caused labor strikes/walkouts, many of his staff members were fiercely loyal.
For a time, WED Enterprises embodied the height of innovation in the business world.
Walt Disney never anticipated that this fact could change, and that would have proven EPCOT’s ultimate undoing.
We live in a copycat society wherein all good ideas get stolen. Sure, the imitators like Universal Studios are never quite as good as the originals like Disneyland.
Still, the increase in job market size and demand leads to an erosion in talent.
Even the best-case scenario for EPCOT would have been a Silicon Valley scenario wherein several companies emerged in an oligopoly.
If EPCOT had succeeded as Disney had projected, others would have swarmed to the area, hired some of the best talent, and tried to claim market share.
EPCOT’s triumph in the short term likely would have proven its undoing over time.
People would have borrowed the proven parts of the project and then adjusted for the flaws that Walt Disney hadn’t anticipated.
In short, EPCOT would have failed not because it was a bad idea but because it was too good.
Whenever I get stuck in traffic, I still fantasize about taking a PeopleMover to the local equivalent of the World Showcase, though.
Had EPCOT excelled, we’d feel its ripple effects throughout society, especially in the areas of transportation and cultural representation.
Ah, what might have been…