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Epcot

Epcot is a theme park at Walt Disney World, in Florida, dedicated to humanity, culture and innovation.

History

Epcot is derived from the acronym EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), a term coined by Walt Disney when he planned a utopian city of the future.

Epcot was originally named EPCOT Center. Currently, the Disney company does not promote the use of the acronym in reference to the Epcot theme park because it feels the term no longer applies. Originally, the theme park was to be the "center" of the futuristic community Walt Disney envisioned and was placed on the center of the property owned by the Disney company in Florida.

The original vision of EPCOT by Walt Disney was of a model community which would be a testbed for city planning and organisation. In the 1980s, the Disney Company began experimenting with the model community of Celebration, Florida which has been mentioned as a realization of Disney's original vision although Celebration is based on concepts of new urbanism which is radically different from Disney's modernist[?] and futurist visions.

The idea of EPCOT was instrumental in prompting the state of Florida to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a legislative mechanism which allows the Walt Disney Company to exercise governmental powers over Walt Disney World. Control over the RCID is vested in the landowners of the district, and the promise of an actual city in the district would have meant that the powers of the RCID would have been distributed among the landowners in EPCOT. However, because the idea of EPCOT was never implemented, the Disney Corporation remained almost the sole landowner in the district allowing it to maintain control of the RCID and the cities of Buena Vista and Bay Lake. That the RCID is now primarily intended as an instrument of the Disney Corporation was illustrated when the RCID redrew its boundaries to exclude Celebration, Florida which would have diluted Disney's control over the RCID.

Park Layout

The park is broken into two distinct sections, Future World and World Showcase. Both of these sections are patterned after the types of exhibits which were popular at World's Fairs in the first half of the 20th century, only on a grander scale.

See also: Celebration, Florida

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump