Did Walt Disney want to build a city?

Disney intended EPCOT to be a real city, and it was planned to feature commercial, residential, industrial and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system, that would, he said, Never cease to be a living blueprint of the future.



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EPCOT, Walt Disney's failed plan to create the city of tomorrow in the sixties. In the mid-sixties, Walt Disney tried to make his dream of creating the city of tomorrow a reality by using state-of-the-art technology of the time. It was called the EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

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Yes, Disney had set his sights on the New Orleans area as a potential location for what we now know as the Walt Disney World Resort according to Nola.com. While this might sound like folklore, it's a story passed down through the years.

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After several meetings with city officials, plans began to form for a downtown indoor park in 1963. The accounts of why this never happened vary. One legend is that Walt decided against the project after being insulted at a dinner party hosted by local St. Louis politicians and businessmen.

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For Disney, it would mean losing a significant source of revenue, as the company's Florida operations include four theme parks, two water parks, several hotels, and numerous other attractions that draw millions of visitors each year.

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In all, the company purchased 27,400 acres for more than $5 million from 51 landowners.

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Let's get one thing out of the way: there has never been a country that was removed from Epcot. All the countries that were originally there opening day — or added later on — remain in the park. The closest we get to a “removal” is perhaps Israel and Africa.

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When Walt finally presented his plans to Burbank's city council, the plans were rejected because local politicians didn't want to bring a “carny” atmosphere into Burbank. This and the reality that Walt's expanded vision for the park had quickly grown far larger than 16 acres, compelled Walt to look outside Burbank.

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To put it simply… nope. Honestly, this is a rumor that has spread multiple times in the Disney space, so we wanted to debunk the rumor.

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A leading expert on Disney World's history in Florida told Insider that the amusement park is tied to its Florida home, due to its expensive operations and sprawling size. They're stuck there, Richard Foglesong, the author of the book Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, told Insider.

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Previous rumors of Disney completely pulling out of Florida have been unfounded.

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The Walt Disney Company announced last night that it had abandoned its chosen site in Northern Virginia for a sprawling American history theme park, a project that was reviled by historians and environmentalists and hotly debated at local planning boards as well as the United States Senate.

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Walt Disney World This is the second Park the Walt Disney Company fully owns, but even this deal wasn't entirely Disney-owned and -built in the very beginning.

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