Customer Reviews

Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I kept thinking over and over again; this could never happen today. Walt Disney World in Orlando is a testament to the creative genius, tenacity, and fantastic reputation that Walt Disney and his hand-picked team possessed at the time that this book takes place. For those looking for a big, glossy, picture-laden coffee table book, this is not the read for you. There are no pictures or diagrams in this book, but truly, it does not need them. Instead, you have a very easy read (took me four bus commuter trips to read this; I couldn't put it down) that documents the why and how of Walt Disney World Resort.

It is fairly common knowledge that Walt Disney was not happy with the less-than-desireable businesses that sprung up around Disneyland in Anaheim back in 1955. These tacky motels and cheap restaurants were not up to the quality of Disney's park, yet they reaped the benefits of proximity. Vowing not to let this happen again, Walt made sure that his next venture would have plenty of land not only for what he wanted to build, but also enough to create a buffer between his dream world and the land speculators who wanted to ride on his coat-tails. Reading almost like a mystery story, you'll learn about the other locations Walt first looked at for his next park (St. Louis, Niagara Falls, New York, and more) and most interestingly of all, the many layers of secrecy that were created to keep the Disney name out of the papers during the negotiations to purchase the property in Florida. The amount of time, research, and effort that went into creating the Orlando Resort is most likely never thought of, but here it is expertly outlined in under 200 pages. The end of the book also features a timeline of important dates in WDW's history as well as a list of key players involved and their roles in "Project Future" as WDW was dubbed back in the day.

Even when the land was purchased, there was much to do; the political machine had to be dealt with, as the Disney team wanted to create a Utopia with revolutionary ways of doing things. Too much government and/or taxation could have meant the downfall of the entire project. I was pleased that author Chad Emerson also gives facts and figures of the actual financial and environmental impact that Walt Disney World had on Florida; these numbers are truly staggering. Walt got the ball rolling and his team carried (most of) his vision forward. With special interest groups and the political climate today, I seriously doubt that a company could step forward and purchase 27,000 acres of swamp & farmland and turn it into one of the top vacation spots in the world. For better or worse, those days are gone. Fortunately, we have Walt Disney World, a living monument that is a testimony to the brilliance of Walt Disney. Thank you Mr. Emerson for this well-written glimpse into the hard work it took to make it happen.

Bottom line: I enjoyed this book. That being said, you need to know that the author has chosen to focus on the legal, political, and real estate aspects of the founding of Walt Disney World. While those aspects are fascinating, he gives very little (almost no) attention to WDW's creative, design, engineering, or construction aspects. A few chapters on those additional aspects would have earned a four-star rating. Also, I deducted a star from the rating for the amount of typos. The book would have benefited from one more copy edit. All in all, this is an unique perspective on an unique place.

Even after four decades, one of the most incredible things about Walt Disney World is its sheer size: 43 square miles. Take a look from the top of the Contemporary Resort or Bay Lake Tower some night at all the miles of darkness around you; or take a ride in the Characters in Flight Balloon at Downtown Disney to get a sense of what all that land looks like. Chad Denver Emerson's book explains down to the individual parcels and tracts how Disney managed to acquire this spread in the mid-1960s under the code name Project Future. But even more impressive is the story of the Reedy Creek Improvement District and the novel legislative and legal pixie dust that created it. What's refreshing about Emerson's book is that he doesn't see control as a bad thing, at least when it is Disney who is exercising it. As America's cities were crumbling Walt was attempting to create something beautiful and new in Florida. Emerson concludes that "the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and Project Future in general, demonstrated that unique allocations of public and private governance can, in appropriate instances, promote visionary efforts."

This book provides plenty of new material even for those who have read Married to the Mouse and Realityland. There's the story of how the mineral rights became separated from the surface rights and how Disney gained control of both. There's the story of how the Florida Supreme Court eventually pronounced that the private/public structure of Walt Disney World was neat and pretty under the Florida Constitution. I learned details about the runner-up project in St. Louis that I had never heard before. And the lengths to which the company went to make sure no one traced the land purchases back to California is something out of the Bourne movies and certainly has never been told so cogently before, complete with an appendix of key players. The only thing missing is a map of the parcels.

The first two thirds of this book, as Walt achieves his manifest destiny, moves like a Space Mountain rocket. The last third moves more at the pace of the Magic Kingdom Railroad as it details legislative battles, legal challenges and the long-term impact of Project Future. But as the recent launch of D23 shows, Disney's fans love this kind of insider knowledge and will no doubt devour Project Future as they wait in ln line for Soarin'.

With his background as a lawyer, the author naturally concentrates on many of the complex legal issues that enabled the Disney Corporation to acquire both the land it needed and the quasi-governmental powers it desired to build Walt Disney World.

Although many of the elaborate steps Disney planners took to hide their activities have been described elsewhere, this account relates the names of the participants to a reasonably concise timeline of events. This book is most interesting when the author describes the intricate planning and attention to detail that the Disney Company and their associates employed to accomplish their goals. However, this book also has a number of errors and omissions that weaken its presentation.

First, there are two notable and inexcusable errors. As anyone familiar with Disney history knows, Disneyland opened on July 17th, not July 7th and Walt's name is "Walter Elias", not "Elias Walter". How such fundamental errors could have made it into print is beyond understanding and caused this reader to wonder what other errors exist with less well-known names and dates.

One also wonders why certain details were omitted. For example, although Billy Dial is frequently mentioned as an Orlando-area banker who assisted in acquiring property and who was ultimately chosen by Roy Disney to handle WDW's banking needs, why was the name of his bank never mentioned? Much time was spent on the fact that Tufts University owned the mineral rights to a large portion of the land Disney wanted to purchase, but we were never told why a university in the Boston area owned such a large tract of land in Florida.

Noting that this book was released under the "Ayefour Publishing" imprint, I was disappointed that the author failed to explain the role that the "Ayefour Corporation" played in the land acquisitions, but merely mentioned it once in a list of corporate names used to disguise the identity of the Disney Company.

Although the author is a respected Law Professor who has written a number of academic papers, the bibliography is lacking many sources and few of the quotations are cited. For example, the memoirs of both Gen. Joe Potter and Robert Foster are mentioned as sources of information, but neither is referenced in the bibliography. Also, many of publications listed in the bibliography are not specifically cited, leaving the reader to wonder what relevant information they contain. Several large bodies of reference materials are listed as "on file" in a University's reference collection with no information as to which parts were relevant to this research. Omitting these details makes this book almost useless as a reference for further study of this interesting subject.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in knowing more about the early history of Walt Disney World, with the warning that it is rather narrow in focus and omits many details that a little more research, or care, could have provided.

The information presented is very interesting, but be warned - the book focuses almost exclusively on the legal proceedings of purchasing and then governing the Walt Disney World area. You either have to be really interested in legal history or the Disney corporation to enjoy this book. I would say the book lacks a few key items that could have made it vastly better:

- MAPS! There are so many references to parcels of land that it would have been incredibly helpful to have map references somewhere in the book, rather than trying to describe locations.

- A good editor/better writer. The writing style comes across as very elementary - almost as if a high schooler was writing a book report.

- The cover was printed crooked in my copy. Maybe this is a really cheap publisher or something, but you'd think things like that would be avoided.

There's some fascinating research that was done and I have to give the author credit for that, but I feel the book could be improved and will have limited appeal for most people. It's a quick read though - the font is huge and it's only about 150 pages of content.

There's a lot of magic in everything Walt did, and certainly in his dreams and designs for Epcot. Unfortunately, it's not conveyed by this book which is entirely caught up in boring legal meanderings related to the Reedy Creek Improvement District. One would think a serious history would have some diagrams, maps, or photos, but it doesn't seem that the author could be bothered to include any. For some reason, the book repeats itself quite a lot, especially when describing the secret planning visits to Florida. The book is also redundant, and manages to say the same thing several ways, such as in the repeated descriptions of the same secret meetings in Florida. By now you've figured out that Walt wouldn't like this book (even the Introduction is very pallid), and you won't either. You can learn a lot more about Epcot and Walt by reading Vinyl Leaves or Walt Disney: An American Original.
Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World And America (Institutional Structures of Feeling)
WALT DISNEY: AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL

Much has been written about the creation of Walt Disney World. "Project Future" is different in that the author has decided to focus on just one part of that massive project: The legal and logistical work done to purchase the land and get the support of the Florida government. This isn't a story of Walt Disney World so much as a story about the Reedy Creek Improvement district. Still, for any die-hard Disney fan or anyone interested in one of the most massive projects in the last 100 years, it is filled with details. The decision to focus on everything leading up to the start of construction (the book stops when construction begins and says nothing about the design work on the resort) fills in some gaps that other books have covered only briefly.

"I'm doing this because I want to do it better", Walt Disney on the Florida Project.

Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World by Chad Denver Emerson. 2009, 185 pp.

Any serious student of Walt Disney World history bemoans the dearth of information available outside of the corporate archives. There are some fantastic resources in print and I have complied a bibliography of titles that focus on Walt Disney World history. Still, there are many gaps and many unanswered questions.

Chad Emerson is a Professor of Law at Faulkner University. He is also a lecturer, author and consultant in the area of amusement and hospitality law. His interest in piecing together the tale of Walt Disney World began when he stumbled across information about the Reedy Creek Improvement District and his wife thought that it would make a fascinating read.

Chad took her advice to heart and began researching the book.

Most of us are aware that Walt began to secretly purchase land in Central Florida for his Disneyland East idea, which blossomed into the City of Tomorrow. Before the publication of Project Future, very few of us were aware of the political machinations, maneuverings, time and money that went into the acquisition of the land that we call Walt Disney World. Project Future has been described by other reviewers as "spy-like" and full of intrigue--they are correct, but it is also full of anecdotes from former employees and government officials.

Chad's book fills a very important vacuum in the time-line from Disneyland's inception until the opening of the Vacation Kingdom. The style of the book is very straightforward and most lay people will be able to consume the work without consulting a legal dictionary. The language, tone and writing are one set of the book's strengths.

Included is a listing of key players, which is very helpful. Many times, I found myself flipping to that section to refresh what a certain player's role was. Chad has a detailed time line that focuses on the major events of the land acquisitions and lobbying efforts.

In all, this is a pleasurable read that paints a picture of how daunting a project like Walt Disney World actually was. You will never take the 43 square miles purchased in the mid-1960's for granted again! You will also come to realize that a project of this size and scope will never be duplicated.

You can learn more about the book by visiting [...]

The book was a quick enjoyable read about Walt Disney World's conception but, as an author, Chad Emerson isn't quite successful in finding the right voice for this tale.

It's important to note that this is NOT about the creative process that Walt Disney and his colleagues went through in conceiving Walt Disney World. Instead, it's about the legal, political, and real estate obstacles that they had to overcome in order to make the resort a reality. While Emerson attempts to create a "concise and interesting history of Disney World from the earliest days", it seems there was too much emphasis on "concise" and less on the "interesting". Don't get me wrong, as a whole, the book is interesting, but only in the most tepid sense of the word.

Often times Emerson mentions in the book certain information about a legal or political drama that could have possibly derailed Disney's grand project. Then suddenly "Bob's your uncle"; the situation is resolved through some negotiation, the terms of which we never hear about. Consequently, there are points in the book that read like a report or academic paper. Even at the very end Emerson feigns objectivity about the resort's impact on Central Florida when his bias had already been clearly established in the previous 150 pages. It was evident that Emerson is a Disney fan, and trying to cover it with false objectivity was a mistake. He was one step away from declaring the book a celebration of Disney's imagination, and he should not have shied away from going there.

In effect, "Project Future" is torn between wanting to be a tale about the practical drama underlying the creation of the world's most notable theme park resorts, or an academic study of the same topic. Either direction would have made "Project Future" an excellent read. I just wish Emerson would have chosen one.

Additionally, typos throughout the book were a big distraction. GET ANOTHER COPY EDITOR!

I heard the author of the book on the WDW Today podcast and found the stories to be exciting, interesting, and informative. Unfortunately, some of these very stories are presented in a much drier and less interesting fashion (with less detail) in the book. The book would have also benefitted from maps, diagrams, and photos to help bring the story to life and to make especially the land-buying material more cogent.

The average WDW fan who wants background on "how it came to be" would probably be better served by Realityland.

Nonetheless, it's an essential tome for WDW competionists.