There are two Epcots.
The Epcot most guests know is the theme park in Disney World with the “big silver golf
ball” and people who like to drink around the world.
The other Epcot, however, is the original EPCOT.
The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
It was Walt Disney’s plan for an actual functioning city of the future that would
be the focal point of Disney World and an example for other cities around the world
as to what city life could be like with proper planning and design.
That second EPCOT never came to fruition because Walt Disney died before they even broke ground
in Florida.
His vision was essential to the plans for Epcot, and so without him the city would never happen.
That, however, doesn’t stop fans from asking: would it have worked?
Before we jump into this, it’s important to note that the only real answer to this
question is that we’ll never know.
A project on the scale of Epcot would have without a doubt taken years of revisions and changes.
We will never know what the final Epcot would have actually looked like, how it would have
operated, or what Walt would have done with it as the world changed around him in the
late sixties and early seventies.
So with that out of the way, here’s my guess: Yes and no.
Ok ok, that’s not a real answer.
Let me be more specific: The more I learn about Walt’s initial plans for EPCOT, the
more I believe he would have been able to successfully build, open, and populate the
city of EPCOT.
However I also believe the city’s overall goal of acting as an example of a cutting
edge city of the future for others to follow would have ultimately failed.
EPCOT city would have been a massive undertaking for sure.
The resources required to build EPCOT, which would have been multiple times larger than
the Magic Kingdom might, itself, have been a roadblock preventing it from ever happening.
However from a technology perspective, if you consider the details of EPCOT, there really
wasn’t anything stopping them.
Most of what was planned for the city would be possible, from the 30 story hotel and convention
center in the middle, to the 50 acre shopping and entertainment district surrounding it,
to the apartment complexes and parks surrounded that, and lastly the low density residential
housing towards the outside.
All of it, on paper is nothing crazy.
It would all be designed in a very specific way with one person overseeing it all, which
was unique, but it was all within the realm of possibility.
Furthermore the proposed transportation methods for the city, both the monorail and people
mover were also possible.
The monorail was already built and operational over in Disneyland, and the people mover would
open just months after Walt’s death in the late 60s.
From a practical construction and technology standpoint, there were only two major complications
with EPCOT.
The first was the fact that the proposed 50 acre shopping center surrounding the hotel
was going to be completely enclosed and climate controlled.Over the years this detail would
be exaggerated and warped, with some claiming EPCOT would be a domed city.
However the concept art in the 1966 film shows that the enclosure would, for the most part,
just be a ceiling over the buildings, with sporadic mini glass-domes for natural lighting.
This would have been a big deal.
Part of the reason the shopping district was planned to be a multi-cultural center aimed
at not only residents of EPCOT, but tourists too, is because in order for the high costs
of such a project to work out, the area itself would have to be a big attraction.
That said, while the costs of something as futuristic sounding as a climate controlled
city center might have been a problem, it still could have been possible.
In 1966, the same year EPCOT was announced, Boeing announced the construction of a new
factory in Washington where it’s planes would be built.
The Boeing Everett Factory in Everett Washington would end up being the largest building in
the world by volume, covering a whopping 98.7 acres of land, which is almost double of what
EPCOT’s city center would be.
So while expensive, the concept of an enclosed area of that size was far from impossible.
The second road bump would have potentially been the city's various layers.
In order to keep traffic flowing through EPCOT and in an attempt to keep the bulk of the
city focused on the people mover and monorail, automotive traffic would be limited to two
layers beneath the city.
The bottom layer would be reserved for truck use so that companies can ship and receive
supplies out of public sight while the layer above that would be reserved for automobile
use, so that cars could either pass through the city smoothly or park at one of the various
underground parking areas.
Conceptually this idea wasn’t that crazy either.
The problem, however, is that Florida has a very high water-table, which as a result
means that you can’t dig too far down into the ground.
It’s the main reason why the utilidor system under the Magic Kingdom isn’t actually underground,
but is instead on the ground level, with the theme park sitting on top of it.
In theory Disney could have been able to do something similar here, allowing the trucks
to pass on the ground level, and cars to pass on the level above it.
That would mean putting the rest of the city center on the third layer.
If building a 50 acre enclosed shopping district wasn’t hard enough, doing it on top of two
other layers would just be that much harder.
Still though, while they would probably pose significant issues in building Epcot, they
aren’t really non-starters.
Nothing about the city was.
After all, Walt’s goal was to let this city act as an example of what other cities around
the world could be like, so it wouldn’t make sense to work in unrealistic technologies.
So where do I think EPCOT would have failed?
I believe in it’s goal to not just serve as a model of the city of the future for others
around the world, but to also remain a cutting edge city of the future over time.
Part of the plan was to invite leaders of industry to establish offices outside of EPCOT
at a massive industrial park where residents of EPCOT could work and guests of EPCOT could
visit to get a look at what upcoming technologies were being developed.
Furthermore, all of the homes and apartments in EPCOT would be constantly outfitted with
the latest and greatest in that new technology.
Guests would be able to witness what a life of the future would be like, and companies
would be able to use the city as a testing ground for their new technology.
Ideally it was the kind of symbiotic relationship that you’d expect only Walt would be able
to pull off.
However as cool as it sounds, I don’t think it would have worked out.
If the concept art is anything to go off of, we’re talking about ten apartment buildings
and anywhere from 700 to 1000 houses, housing up to 20,000 residents in total.
Even if we assume everyone in EPCOT is part of a family, that’s still between
6 and 7 thousand residential units to constantly update.
Do we really think that every time GE came up with a new refrigerator or toaster, they’d
be willing to pay to produce and install 7,000 of them, for the purposes of testing, just
so they could do the whole thing over again with the next one?
Furthermore while companies were slower with products and more open to showing them off
in the 60s, today’s world is virtually the opposite.
In a world in which companies like Apple are updating their products every 12 months, and
keep their plans a secret until the very last possible second, it’s hard to imagine a
city in which companies would be willing to show off their upcoming technology to competitors
in a setting like Epcot.
Not to mention with the rise of the internet, companies no longer have to count on physical
guests to advertise their brand or test for new products.
Why pay the costs associated with running offices and factories out of Orlando just
to advertise themselves to the millions of guests visiting every year when they can produce
content for the internet that costs virtually nothing in comparison and ends up being seen
by far more people?
It’s the same evolution that, in my opinion, is why we’ve seen a decline in company sponsored
attractions at the Disney parks over the last few decades.
There just isn’t as much of an incentive for the companies anymore.
Besides, even if companies were willing to do all of that, would it even be possible
with the speed at which new products are developed today?
Would, for instance, Sony be able to complete the logistical work involved in setting up
7,000 homes with a new high-tech TV before there’s an even newer TV ready to go?
Would the speed result in a lifestyle in which resident’s homes were under a constant state of upgrade?
Would people really want to live like that?
Ultimately, I think Walt had a wonderful motive when he dreamed up EPCOT.
He saw the state of cities in the US and wanted to not only prove to the world that he could
do better, but he wanted to share with them how to do better so that they could follow
along and improve the lives of millions.
It was a noble goal that, if possible, would require the vision and genius of a man like
Walt Disney.
I suspect had he lived the extra 15+ years he said he would need to build EPCOT, he would
have probably pulled off building a city of the future.
However much like Tomorrowland, or Future World in the Epcot we would eventually get,
I also suspect that city of the future would quickly become just another city of
the present.