Chapter Review: The CIty of Tomorrow: Walt Disney's Last and Lost Dream

from the book Dreamers and Deceivers: True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America by Glenn Beck with Kevin Balfe, Theshold Editions, New York, 2014.

Epcot Center was Walt Disney's last and great dream.  Previously he had proved critics wrong when he insisted on creating Disneyland as a different kind of park.  However Epcot was suppose to be much more than a display of technology.  Walt Disney envisioned it as a self enclosed city.  EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.  Disney had seen suffering in the world, and poverty, and this was his plan to counteract such issues.  He had also seen the riots in Watts, and knew there was a better way.  However Disney's health did not allow him to finish this dream.  He made his older brother, Roy, promise to finish the work.  However Roy could not quite see Walt's dream.  Sure Walt Disney World (Roy insisted on the Walt) opened as a great amusement park, but it never quite was what Walt envisioned, nor did it have the impact Walt had hoped for.  Epcot is an exhibit acknowledging technology, but is only a sad compromise of Walt's original dream, EPCOT.

Roy Disney

Walt Disney