When Walt started working on the Florida project, his main personal focus was on EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). He'd gone full futurist and wanted to build a model community that would address all the problems he'd seen in urbanization.
To facilitate this, once Disney went public with their land acquisitions, they asked Florida to create a special watershed improvement district for them. This was known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Effectively, it emancipated their land from Orange and Osceola counties.
Within its boundaries, the RCID had primary responsibility for most county and municipal levels of government. In practical application, this means that RCID has its own fire dept, its own building codes, it's own health and environmental depts, and responsibility and authority over roads and utilities.
This was, obviously, an enormous boon to Disney, and a huge "fuck you" to the involved counties.
Walt died before realizing Epcot, and Roy had the whole thing redone as a park. By all rights the RCID should have ended there. But it carried on due to momentum and Florida generally liking the money that was rolling in.
Walt died before realizing Epcot, and Roy had the whole thing redone as a park.
And that's the saddest bit. No way to know, obviously, how Epcot would have turned out but it would have been great as an experiment. And instead of what might have been we got an amusement park run kiddy diddlers
For those who don't know the history...
When Walt started working on the Florida project, his main personal focus was on EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). He'd gone full futurist and wanted to build a model community that would address all the problems he'd seen in urbanization.
To facilitate this, once Disney went public with their land acquisitions, they asked Florida to create a special watershed improvement district for them. This was known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Effectively, it emancipated their land from Orange and Osceola counties.
Within its boundaries, the RCID had primary responsibility for most county and municipal levels of government. In practical application, this means that RCID has its own fire dept, its own building codes, it's own health and environmental depts, and responsibility and authority over roads and utilities.
This was, obviously, an enormous boon to Disney, and a huge "fuck you" to the involved counties.
Walt died before realizing Epcot, and Roy had the whole thing redone as a park. By all rights the RCID should have ended there. But it carried on due to momentum and Florida generally liking the money that was rolling in.
And that's the saddest bit. No way to know, obviously, how Epcot would have turned out but it would have been great as an experiment. And instead of what might have been we got an amusement park run kiddy diddlers
I like to imagine it would have been like the pre-fallout world depicted in Fallout™.