Lifestyle
Cities That Disney and Hitler Wanted to Build
Amusement city, city-ship, city-cloud… It seems like something envisioned by Sci-Fi writers. However, it could have all been real.
If Walt Disney realized his idea, in place of Disney World there would have been a unique city with a weird name EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow).
Disney’s city-utopia was designed as an antithesis to Los Angeles in the 1950s. Walt Disney purchased 27,800 acres of swampland, which, as he’d thought, would be enough to realize his incredible dreams.
The city was designed for 20,000 residents and had radial plan structure. In the center of EPCOT – a 30-storey hotel and a business part of the city; around them – public buildings, schools and entertainment centers; along the perimeter – residential districts.
Almost the entire city would have been a traffic-free zone, while cars would be riding along underground roads.
You could have also ride the monorail that looks more like an amusement ride than public transport.
However, Walt Disney didn’t manage to begin seriously working on the project. After his death in 1966, the Walt Disney company decided to abandon the project, which is why EPCOT became a yet another theme part of Disney World.
Imagine that – a small city inhabited by ONLY VEGANS could appear in the state of Kansas two centuries ago. Thinking about a bright vegan future, the first wave of voluntary inhabitants arrived to the vegan city. All they had were ten tents – each for every family. The inhabitants had difficulties with procuring supplies; mosquitos tortured them, while frequent storms didn’t allow them to live outside. As a result, the project failed.
In the 1960s, an American engineer Buckminster Fuller came up with an idea to build a city shaped as a tetrahedron, which would house about 6,000 people.
The city would be fully autonomous, distilling the water around with its own installation, and could resist storms and even tsunami.
Such a floating city would save countries with a high density of population. The idea to build a tetrahedron-shaped city inspired one rich Japanese businessman, who assigned Fuller to design a Triton City in Tokyo Bay. However, he died shortly before the project began.
After that, Americans got interested in the idea. In particular, authorities of Baltimore lobbied a project to build Triton City in the Chesapeake Bay. The authorities insisted that the city must resemble a gigantic ship.
However, the project didn’t go past planning because of its cost of $670 million. But who knows – maybe such cities will emerge in the future. As Fuller himself said, the ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, which is why it is ‘natural’ to build such floating cities.
Unlike the previous cities, you would definitely not want to see this one, let alone live in it. Designed by Adolf Hitler, the city would have been located in place of today’s Berlin, and would have become the capital of his empire.
The city would have been filled with monuments praising the Third Reich, but the project was halted when the war began.
China’s ecology-friendly heaven on one of the islands in the creek of the Yangtze River would have become a perfect example of the modern world. No overpopulation problems, no cars with harmful exhausts – only electro and hydrogenous transport.
In 2005, the plan to build the city was agreed on and even signed by leaders of China and the U.K. The eco-city should have been opened by 2020, but the project fell through. In 2006, the project was halted because of financial issues and corruption scandals.
Another fantastic idea by Buckminster Fuller, who came up with the idea to build a floating city. This time, he wanted to house people in flying mini cities named Cloud Nine.
The engineer planned the ‘spheres’ to be connected, freely hover around or move around depending on climate conditions.
However, just like the project with floating cities, the project with hovering cities fell through. As of today, the only famous hovering city that we have seen was in a Japanese animated film titled ‘Castle in the Sky’.
