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The over-bearing central planning feel to this at first reminded me of a government and economy system that ol' Walt was probably diametrically opposed to. But
by daviding 11y ago
The over-bearing central planning feel to this at first reminded me of a government and economy system that ol' Walt was probably diametrically opposed to. But then I realized it's just a futurist attempt at the Company Town [1] concept again.
Having lived near somewhere like Poundbury [2] before, it's probably no accident that the place felt like an empty theme park. While the architecture is pretty there is something soulless about the place.
As mentioned in the article, he was only a couple of months before death by lung cancer, and I think that much of the vision must have been his desire to leave some ideas bigger than rides and cartoons. I don't think the current white picket fenced retired millionaires town of Celebration is what he had in mind at all.
EDIT: I'm getting mixed up between 'Celebration' and the newer 'Golden Oaks' Disney development. Golden Oaks looks like physical VR for the wealthy. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury
[3] http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/
- plonh 11y agoDisney was anti-Communist. He wasn't anti-autboritarian. He was rather authoritian.
- hitekker 11y agoCompletely unrelated: http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ is one of the whitest videos I've ever seen that's not a parody:
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y agoNo, actually, that's where the Stepford Wives live.
- noonespecial 11y agoGood lord. I kept waiting for Morlocks to show up and eat some of them. This positively has to be the beginning of an X-Files episode. Then again, I live in an an industrial park behind the rail yard of a plastic factory so from their perspective, I might be a Morlock...
- btgeekboy 11y agoHomes start at just $2m! Which is even more than it sounds like considering that the Orlando-area real estate market is quite cheap compared to other parts of the country.
- joezydeco 11y agoDisney must believe that proximity to the park (as in, right next door) adds some value to the real estate.
- noonespecial 11y agoWell, sure. Just look what it does to the price of a hot dog on the other side of the gates. That's some Disney magic for ya right there.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoWell, $1.8M and they are displaying the HUD logo so presumably some of the barely wealthy can get a subsidized McMansion.
- joezydeco 11y agoGolden Oak is housing targeted at extremely wealthy Baby Boomer grandparents. Nothing to do with urban planning at all.
- denniskane 11y ago"over-bearing central planning" Ever heard of the city of Naypyidaw? It took about a decade to build in the middle of bumfuck Burma. It's like 6 times the size of NYC, with 20 lane highways that are almost always empty. I guess they tried to make it seem luxurious, but the ghost-town vibe makes workers want to commute from Rangoon. I just heard about it on 60 minutes during a piece about Aung San Suu Kyi. She's the badass whose party just won in the recent elections there. Which has nothing to do with the current thread, but I'm a rebel like that :)