Futuristic 1990s Disney towns besides EPCOT
March 9, 2025 7:59 PM Subscribe
Circa 1995, when I was a child, I read something about a community in Florida which was built by Disney, with futuristic design a la EPCOT, but which was distinct from EPCOT inasmuch as my memory recalls this place being an actual residential area rather than a theme park model of a city. Anyone else remember this and can help me remember what it's actually called/where there are information sources about it?
I simply cannot find reference to it on the internet, as all the stuff I'm finding are either strictly about EPCOT (which ended up being a theme park instead of a city), or are about places such as Celebration (which have different design aesthetics) or are about projects Disney only began pursuing in the past decade.
The city had a bunch of futuristic-looking white houses and similar buildings, or what passed for futuristic at the time. The reason I think it was abandoned is that at some later point, I saw pictures of the houses in a state of severe disrepair...
I simply cannot find reference to it on the internet, as all the stuff I'm finding are either strictly about EPCOT (which ended up being a theme park instead of a city), or are about places such as Celebration (which have different design aesthetics) or are about projects Disney only began pursuing in the past decade.
The city had a bunch of futuristic-looking white houses and similar buildings, or what passed for futuristic at the time. The reason I think it was abandoned is that at some later point, I saw pictures of the houses in a state of severe disrepair...
On that list linked by stormyteal towards the bottom is Progress City, which was supposed to be part of Epcot but was apparently unbuilt.
posted by LionIndex at 8:14 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
posted by LionIndex at 8:14 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
Here's a post about that Progress City model...
I don't think that Progress City is the thing I'm vaguely remembering. Whatever I'm thinking of would have been some sort of article in a magazine aimed at kids or teens that I encountered sometime between about '85 & '95. I have an image-memory in my head, but it's pretty light on the details, and I've no idea what publication it was in.
posted by stormyteal at 8:22 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
I don't think that Progress City is the thing I'm vaguely remembering. Whatever I'm thinking of would have been some sort of article in a magazine aimed at kids or teens that I encountered sometime between about '85 & '95. I have an image-memory in my head, but it's pretty light on the details, and I've no idea what publication it was in.
posted by stormyteal at 8:22 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
Not Disney-related, but could you be thinking of California City, California?
posted by kickingtheground at 9:10 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
posted by kickingtheground at 9:10 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]
I went to look up Tomorrowland, wondering if that's what you had in mind, and then found the Wikipedia entry on EPCOT the concept before it was a theme park ("Based on ideas stemming from modernism and futurism, and inspired by architectural literature about city planning, Disney intended EPCOT to be a utopian autocratic company town. One of the primary stated aims of EPCOT was to replace urban sprawl as the organizing force of community planning in the United States in the 1960s. Disney intended EPCOT to be a real city, and it was planned to feature commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system...").
And then that linked to the Monsanto House of the Future. I googled Monsanto House of the Future, which led me to this YouTube video, which maybe isn't what you're thinking about, but perhaps it will jog your memory. A house of plastic!
I remember being absolutely dazzled by the futuristic interior home models in line at Space Mountain in the late 80s in Orlando, so I looked up Space Mountain, which mentions a "the 1994 overhaul of Tomorrowland," which aligns with your timing. So now I am wondering if you saw an article in the mid 90s reflecting on EPCOT and Disney's other defunct future plans?
Here's an article on the old Tomorrowland, with lots of photos of the white buildings. That might jog your memory too.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:59 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
And then that linked to the Monsanto House of the Future. I googled Monsanto House of the Future, which led me to this YouTube video, which maybe isn't what you're thinking about, but perhaps it will jog your memory. A house of plastic!
I remember being absolutely dazzled by the futuristic interior home models in line at Space Mountain in the late 80s in Orlando, so I looked up Space Mountain, which mentions a "the 1994 overhaul of Tomorrowland," which aligns with your timing. So now I am wondering if you saw an article in the mid 90s reflecting on EPCOT and Disney's other defunct future plans?
Here's an article on the old Tomorrowland, with lots of photos of the white buildings. That might jog your memory too.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:59 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
On one vacation trip I paid to take a "behind the scenes" Disney tour and a couple of things they mentioned on the topic of EPCOT was: #1 - the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" could never have come to pass for reasons that should have been obvious (who would get to live there, how would it be governed, etc.) #2 - according to the tour guide Disney employees now say that EPCOT stands for "Every Payday Comes on Thursday". Just FYI (and yes, tangential to the question, sorry).
posted by forthright at 10:04 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
posted by forthright at 10:04 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
Mod note: A few comments and its responses deleted. The OP specifically said it is not Celebration, Florida.
posted by loup (staff) at 10:09 AM on March 10
posted by loup (staff) at 10:09 AM on March 10
Golden Oak?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Oak_at_Walt_Disney_World_Resort doesn't have pictures of the different neighborhoods, but maybe one of them was the then-futuristic white buildings.
posted by adekllny at 10:11 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Oak_at_Walt_Disney_World_Resort doesn't have pictures of the different neighborhoods, but maybe one of them was the then-futuristic white buildings.
posted by adekllny at 10:11 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I think I've figured it out, thanks to some comments here leading me down different paths than I was following. Not 100% sure but it seems highly likely that the thing I'm remembering was the so-called Xanadu House built in Kissimmee in a vague relationship with Disney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_Houses
The buildings I remember in this children's article (which I believe was in the Weekly Reader although I haven't seen archives of copies that contain the article) were very much in the architectural style of the buildings in that wikipedia article, and based on that fact along with some of the other details on the wiki page, I feel like this is the thing most consistent with my memory that I've found so far.
It's definitely not Celebration - Celebration generally goes for a more traditional architectural style while the stuff I'm remembering either literally is, or is extremely similar to, the stuff in the Xanadu article.
posted by Whale Oil at 11:09 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_Houses
The buildings I remember in this children's article (which I believe was in the Weekly Reader although I haven't seen archives of copies that contain the article) were very much in the architectural style of the buildings in that wikipedia article, and based on that fact along with some of the other details on the wiki page, I feel like this is the thing most consistent with my memory that I've found so far.
It's definitely not Celebration - Celebration generally goes for a more traditional architectural style while the stuff I'm remembering either literally is, or is extremely similar to, the stuff in the Xanadu article.
posted by Whale Oil at 11:09 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
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This is now tonight's rabbit-trail for me; I'll let you know if I run across one that fits your description. (Oddly, what you're describing sounds very vaguely familiar to me... but that's all I've got, is a sense I've read about it, too, a long long time ago.)
posted by stormyteal at 8:05 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]