November 22, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated and the day Walt Disney decided to change Orlando forever. Walt Disney wanted a second chance; he wanted to build a theme park bigger and better than Disney Land. He flew over a boggy, buggy, humid, hole-in-the-wall place called Orlando. This is where he decided to build hid theme park. This is where he wanted to build Epcot, Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

            Walt got more than 25,000 acres of land to build Disney World. Another reason why Walt chose Orlando is because it is at the confluence of Interstate 4 and Florida’s Turnpike, two of the most important interstate highway systems. A deal with the legislature made it so that Disney World is above and outside the law. It detached the lands purchased by Walt from Florida to form a Magic Kingdom. There are several other theme parks in Orlando including SeaWorld, Universal, and many that have gone under because they are to real and did not create fantasies.

            There’s one sentence that T.D. Allman wrote that I loved so much so I had to include it. “This, truly, is a 21st-century paradigm: It is growth built on consumption, not production; a society founded not on natural resources, but upon the dissipation of capital accumulated elsewhere; a place of infinite possibilities, somehow held together, to the extent it is held together at all, by a shared recognition of highway signs, brand names, TV shows, and personalities, rather than any shared history. Nowhere else is the juxtaposition of what America actually is and the conventional idea of what America should be more vivid and revealing.” This sentence describes Orlando so well. Orlando not only attracted Walt but also attracted religious men like Bill Bright and Jim Henry. Orlando also lured Massachusetts native Jack Kerouac, a novelist and poet.

            Epcot failed. People didn’t want it so Disney officials decided to turn it into an area that resembles a 1940’s seashore vacation with food options themed to places like Gay Paree, a space ride, and “Key West” time-share options. Orlando has become one of the top 25 dangerous places in the USA, the opposite of what Walt wanted. Orlando’s famous “golden oldies” station, FM 100.3, was shut down and became Rumba 100.3, home of central Florida’s hottest Latin sound. This is because of all the Cuban’s and Puerto Ricans now living in Florida, who make up roughly 20% of Orlando’s population.

            Orlando has really bad traffic, and Allman found that out the hard way. Orlando shows us that the real wonderland is our diversity and unpredictability. Many people in Orlando have found their Epcot, like Eric Strunz who found it in a Buddhist temple, or Allman who found that America’s true Epcot is the communities we build and shape around us.