Greg Maletic
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Would residents happily cede control to a central authority?
The film's narrator mentions that the houses would be "built in ways that permit ease of change so that new products may continuously be demonstrated." The houses are flexible not because people might want them that way, so they could decorate and arrange them as they would want; they're flexible to demonstrate technologies. At EPCOT, the way people live seemed to be the least thought-through--and presumably least exciting--part of the project for Disney. EPCOT would be a city that might be more exciting to visit than your typical city, but not necessarily more fun to live in.

The closest thing to Disney's EPCOT on the Florida property--the city of Celebration, constructed about ten years ago--is an interesting experiment, but it shares the same fatal flaw: it assumes too readily that its occupants will cede control to a central authority for things as mundane as the furniture they can place on their front porch. As such, it can't be a blueprint for a real community, just a community that can be easily controlled. The majority of communities in the world don't fall into that category. (The proliferation of gated communities in the U.S. might be an echo of the concepts that Celebration showcases…but are they what Disney was thinking of when he sat in front of the cameras in 1966?)

The film finishes with this strange dictate:

EPCOT will be a working community with employment for all. And everyone who lives here will have a responsibility to help keep this community an exciting living blueprint of the future.

What does this mean? How do citizens manage their responsibility? What if they don't live up to their responsibility? What is their responsibility?

EPCOT neglects the problems of real cities
Disney says:

I don't believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that's more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities.

Probably true, but is it really fair to think that EPCOT addresses any of the problems of a real city? EPCOT is so fundamentally different from a real city--in its governance, organization, the make-up of the people who inhabit it--that it's hard to imagine how any of its lessons could be applied to any existing city. In and of itself, that's not a failing of the plan: at the beginning of the film, Disney's stated presumption is that the cities of 1966 are beyond repair. But the film tries to have it both ways: if today's cities are beyond repair, then how could they possibly learn from EPCOT?

Intentionally or unintentionally, Disney is doing a bit of a selling job on the Florida officials he's trying to convince. By saying today's cities are beyond repair, he makes a case for bypassing a city's traditional restrictions: its zoning laws, governance, etc.; rules that other cities have to play by. But by then teasingly promoting the wonders that the world will learn from EPCOT, he assuages the feelings of officials who might be feeling a bit guilty for thinking they'd let Disney skirt the regulations they'd meticulously put into place in the decades previous. They're doing the world a service, they can think to themselves…so why shouldn't they bend the rules?

…But is it possible?
These aren't small issues I've outlined: they would have been incredibly difficult to surmount. When I started writing this article, my belief was that nothing like EPCOT could really have been built. But with more thought, I began to think that it could have worked if the mission were defined a little more narrowly: instead of a city of the future, maybe what EPCOT could have been would be a "compound" for Disney employees crossed with an industrial park. Hardly a blueprint for all cities, but a blueprint for small, planned, controlled communities. Make it a sort of college campus, not a city. Don't try to solve ancillary issues, like the modernization of education. Don't let people even think they have the rights of owners. They're tenants. That's why college-age kids would be great: they have no immediate need--or resources--to purchase anything, so their desire to control their environment is minimal. That's the most important criteria for any planned community.

The industrial park aspect would certainly be difficult, though not impossible. The key requirement in creating an exhibit showcasing the work of a living, breathing corporation would be full-time attention from both Disney and representatives of said corporation, else the exhibit stands to go stale very quickly. Disney would have to volunteer all of the financial resources toward making the exhibit work, including paying the salaries of company employees who act as Disney liaisons. Disney couldn't afford to let the host companies decide to skimp on--or worse, lay off--employees necessary to make the exhibits work, something host companies might sensibly want to do in hard times.

This toned-down EPCOT isn't as thrilling as what Disney proposed, but it does seem more practical and would meet the goals that Disney himself set: to create a place where people would live and work in new ways, and where the American free enterprise system could be showcased in its best light. Whether it’s something that a company like Walt Disney Productions should be creating is another question entirely, and it’s not surprising that those who ran the company after his death in 1966 got cold feet.