EPCOT (concept)

The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) was an unfinished concept for a planned community, intended to sit on a swath of undeveloped land near Orlando, Florida. It was created by Walt Disney in collaboration with the designers at WED Enterprises which would later become Walt Disney Imagineering. Based on ideas stemming from modernism and futurism, and inspired by architectural literature about city planning, Disney intended EPCOT to be a utopian autocratic company town, although he struggled to somehow include residents in community governance. One of the primary stated aims of EPCOT was to replace urban sprawl as the organizing force of community planning in the United States in the 1960s. 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". Following Disney's death in 1966, EPCOT plans were shelved. In 1971, Walt Disney World emerged, with Epcot opening in 1982 as a theme park and influencing the nearby community of Celebration, Florida. Elements from the original EPCOT vision endured, shaping aspects of the modern Disney World park, such as the monorail system and the utilidor system.