EPCOT

Most people are aware that EPCOT is a theme park part of Disney World in Florida.  Most people, however, don’t know what the acronym stands for.  Maybe “Exciting Place of Cool and Outstanding Terrificness?” Nope.  It actually stands for the “Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.”

Walt Disney, near the end of his career, wanted to invest in an experiment in urban planning and design.  He planned out the design of city using modern technology, especially in transportation.  He theorized that if a city was designed thinking about modern methods of transportation, instead of being the jumbled mess of hundreds of years of development, many problems of modern cities could be solved.  Unfortunately he dies before his vision could be implemented, and they decided to turn EPCOT into a theme park instead.

Here is a two-part video of Walt Disney explaining his plan.  The interesting parts about the city’s design starts halfway through the first video, and continues through the second.