Abstract:
In 1965, Walt Disney sent the nation into a tizzy when he announced his plans to erect a new
entertainment enterprise on Central Florida cow pastures. However, what he had in mind was
much more than just an East Coast Disneyland. In fact the centerpiece of his so-called “Florida
Project” was not a theme park, but an Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow (EPCOT). This
model community of the future sought to literally reinvent the American city from the ground up,
and would serve as a proving ground for the latest innovations in urban living. After Walt Disney
died, his forlorn predecessors shelved EPCOT, and developed Walt Disney World into a massive
complex of theme parks, resorts and recreational areas. Exhuming EPCOT is a hypothetical
promotional campaign that proposes how the Walt Disney Company might market EPCOT's
homes and residences to a contemporary audience, if the city were built today. Drawing
inspiration from historical documents, scholarly studies, and real-world marketing research, this
fictional campaign represents a feasible conception of how EPCOT might be presented to the
public were it set to open in 2020.
