Walt Disney's E.P.C.O.T film (1966)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in discussions of planned cities and urban design as the original source for Disney's utopian EPCOT vision.
What it is
The 1966 film Walt Disney recorded weeks before his death, laying out his plans for the Florida Project and especially EPCOT, a planned city of the future. It uses models, concept art and animation to describe the circular city, monorails and people movers.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2014 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Tempest1981 · 2017-11 · on “An Inconvenient Truth about Smart Cities”
The full EPCOT plans are interesting. A circular city layout, with layers. Density in the center. People taking monorails to work, and WEDway people movers locally. Designed for biking and walking. Cars only used on weekends. Details about 10 min into this video: [this video]
Cites dm2 · 2014-07 · on “Let's Build a Traditional City and Make a Profit”
Walt Disney wanted to do it 50 years ago, it might be good to take some lessons learned from his planning. [LINK] [this video] [LINK] Beautiful renderings: [LINK] Also, use thumbnails or a CDN FFS. Other planned city resources: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK]
Cites padobson · 2015-11 · on “When Disney Got Adult and Trippy”
"Industry pundits predicted that no one would sit still for a cartoon feature. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs proved otherwise and blazed the trail for the industry." Nobody knew how to make serious money on short animations, animated features, or theme parks before Walt Disney. He did it all though. He also wanted to try out the utopia thing[1], and it's maybe the 20th century's greatest missed opportunity. If you haven't read Walt Disney's World[2], it's my favorite biography on the great man. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Cites blotter_paper · 2019-05 · on “Should Disney World Have the Right to Build a Nuclear Power Plant?”
And those legal machinations were arranged by a lawyer who used to be a CIA recruiter. I'll add this video of Walt Disney's original plan for the land, in which Disney World is overshadowed by the (u/dys)topian city he called EPCOT (later mangled into the showroom we know today by his brother and investors who were scared of costs and didn't see reliable earning potential in running a city) with a timestamp to when the fun starts: [this video] This is the stuff that inspired BioShock and similar settings (I believe I read an interview years ago where one of the designers mentioned it as an influence, but I wouldn't know where to find a link).