EPCOT

EPCOT, at the Disney Parks in Florida, is quite an interesting place. One of the most interesting things is that it was never intended to be a theme park.

The name EPCOT derives from the acronym Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, and it was intended to be a planned, utopian city complete with residences, transport system, schools and recreation facilities. It was to be a testbed for new building materials, city planning systems and futuristic improvements. It would have it's own short takeoff/landing runway (that was built but is now closed to air traffic) - no doubt for the flying cars we should have had by now and the original plans called for an international airport/jetport to be built. Remember that Orlando International was still just an airforce base at this point.

It was also indended to by fully managed and controlled by the corporation, whom would own all the properties and rent them to residences. Therefore, all propterties would be fully maintained and, incidentally, none of the residences would have any voting rights in local affairs.

The plans were all set to proceed, but conditional on Disney building the Magic Kingdom theme park first to attract tourism to the area. Walt Disney died before the park was complete and at that point the corporation decided that it didn't really want to run a city, so it shelved the plans and turned parts of it into the Epcot Theme Park instead.

Even so, it is interesting to reflect on what was built, as well as what might have been. The theme park which is there costs exorbitant prices to enter. Once you enter, passing through the x-ray machine and bag searches, you of course need to wait in queues anywhere up to an hour to see the good things, and the price of food and drink is also through the roof.

Everyone is happy there, the customers are, the staff are (probably at risk of being fired if they are insufficiently perky). Thousands of people work behind the scenes to make sure there is not a hint of upset or a single tear. But why would you be unhappy? After all, this is the happiest place one Earth! Not a blade of grass is out of place in the perfectly manicured lawns that you can admire, but never sit or walk on - an attempt to do so would certainly be picked up by the watchful attendants or the myriad of concealed CCTV cameras that monitor the area.

It makes you wonder.... perhaps Mr Disney did indeed give us the template for the society of tomorrow, after all.