10. EPCOT

Location: Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Planned in: 1960s

Theme: Working prototype futuristic city, open to visitors

The background

By far the most famous - and ambitious - of Walt's never-realised dreams was his plan to build a futuristic city dubbed the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) at his Florida resort. This would be a place where new technologies and systems could be tested, before being rolled out to other cities across the world.

Having reinvented the amusement park, Walt had now turned his attention to solving the problems of the real world.

The plans

EPCOT would have featured a simple design, not dissimilar to the famous hub-and-spoke layout employed by Disneyland.

At its heart would be a 50-acre urban complex, much of it covered to protect it from the elements (although plans to enclose the entire city in a climate-controlled "bubble" are a myth).

At the very center of this would sit an enormous, 30-story hotel, dubbed the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

At the base of the hotel would be an international shopping district, with stores representing countries from all over the world.

Surrounding the central area would be a series of three further "rings" in a radial system. The first would host high-density apartments. The next ring would be a greenbelt hosting parks, playgrounds and schools.

The final ring would be a low-density residential area, complete with houses that would see their furnishings and appliances replaced constantly with newer versions.

Residents would commute to work via WEDway trams, like those used on the PeopleMover at Disneyland. Monorails would carry them on longer journeys. Automobiles and trucks would be restricted to underground tunnels, and to a one-way road that circled EPCOT. A jet airport would link the city to the rest of the world, and would be used as a place to test new methods of processing bags and cargo.

Walt hoped to persuade leading companies to install research laboratories, factories and other facilities in the city, with visitors able to explore them all. He engaged with hundreds of companies to discuss the project, and EPCOT became his favorite topic of conversation. The plans referred to here were constantly evolving, and it's impossible to say for sure what EPCOT would have looked like if it had finally been built.

What went wrong?

When Walt died (after the Disney World project was announced, but before detailed planning work had begun on EPCOT), Roy opted to focus on opening the Magic Kingdom and resort hotels at Walt Disney World first. The more ambitious EPCOT could wait until later.

Roy’s successors at the company never did find a way to create Walt's dream city - when it did open in 1982, EPCOT Center included some elements of the original plans, but was essentially just another theme park.

The legacy

The biggest legacy of Walt’s EPCOT is, of course, the theme park that was named after it. Today’s Epcot is still made up of Future World (which showcases future technologies, albeit largely through the medium of rides and shows, rather than working factories as Walt envisioned) and World Showcase (a permanent World’s Fair that bears a strong resemblance to Walt’s planned international shopping district). Of course, nobody lives at Epcot – and in recent years Disney has faced accusations of “dumbing down” the park’s original purpose, by installing attractions dedicated to movies and fictional characters rather than the real world.

Elsewhere, the pioneering spirit of EPCOT was reflected in the initial design of Walt Disney World. For example, underground tunnels sit below the Magic Kingdom, keeping service vehicles and utilities largely out of sight. The monorail is an important transport link between different areas of the resort, even if it doesn’t extend beyond its borders. An updated PeopleMover lives on at the Magic Kingdom as the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. And innovative ways of recycling water, disposing of waste and handling insect populations help support the daily operations of the sprawling resort.

EPCOT's other legacy was the far-reaching local government powers that Disney secured for its land in Florida. The Reedy Creek Improvement District still wields these powers, and they have proved helpful - for example, Disney was able to rush Disney-MGM Studios into construction to enable it to open before rival Universal Studios Florida in 1989.