Goofyernmost wrote:Sure was a big plan wasn't it? How many of you think it would have worked if Walt had lived to make it happen? Do you see many flaws in the plan?
Yeah, there was a few flaws.
One, I think was the cost of the city. It would have been much more than sponsors would have been willing to contribute. It's one thing to contribute to a pavilion. It's another to commit to a city.
Transportation options of people movers and monorails looked great, but a general labor problem would have crippled the city without a secondary transportation system.
We have an underbelly to the city of Chicago on the near north, which may have been the impetus to Walt's plan of having all the automotive/truck transportation under the city. (Lower Wacker is part of this, made famous in movies such as the Blues Brothers...) But in reality, it got filthy from the exhaust fumes and became a place of crime and homelessness and garbage and rats. It took the city years to clean it up. Exhaust in the 60's was pretty bad. A huge ventilation system would have had to have been used to exhaust the fumes. We won't mention the potential problems of fires or other hazmat spills.
Epcot (the theme park) is right where the city was supposed to be. It turns out the land there sucks. That big place between future world and world showcase? It's empty there because beneath it is a huge sinkhole. They sunk two 120 foot pilings there for the monorail supports, and they both disappeared in the muck.
I have no doubt that Walt would have built it anyway, had he lived. He probably would have made it work on some level as well. But corporations and individuals like to be different, and I'm not sure they would have like the uniformness of what is ultimately a planned community.
Disney World would have looked a lot different that it does today, though.