However, Disney directors eventually decided that it was too risky to venture into city planning now that its biggest advocate was gone. Roy persisted and took the reins on the project, coming out of retirement, but he could not convince the board to build EPCOT.

The original "EPCOT" envisioned by Walt Disney—the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow—was never built because it was fundamentally a real-world city, not a theme park, and its primary champion died before it could be realized. Walt's vision was for a living, breathing metropolis of 20,000 residents who would live in a climate-controlled "urban hub," use silent PeopleMovers for transit, and work in a "testing ground" for American industry. Residents would not own their homes and would have no municipal voting rights, effectively creating a corporate-run autocracy. When Walt Disney died in December 1966, the Board of Directors at Disney felt the financial and legal risks of running a real city (with schools, police, and taxes) were too high. They decided to pivot toward a more profitable, lower-risk "theme park" model. The EPCOT Center that opened in 1982 was a "permanent World's Fair" compromise that utilized the aesthetic of Walt's city but removed the "living community" aspect entirely.