Paleo-Future is a great blog brought to my attention by a comment left on one of the posts here at Where. I keep all of my blogs organized with Google Reader, so I only go to the actual pages when I need a direct link for a post. Today, though, I was poking around P-F and I found that there is a nicely-organized page that tracks all of the Cities-of-the-Future-related posts. I found this quite exciting.
As I perused the archived posts about space cities and underwater colonies, I came across a post about the planning of EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World. I have known for a long time that EPCOT was supposed to be an actual, working city (the acronym stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, after all.) Instead, it wound up as my favorite theme park. Still, it was interesting to learn about what Walt used as influences for the plans of his futuristic community. Sir Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of Tomorrow is, somewhat unsurprisingly, on the list. What really grabbed me was this line: "...[Walt also used] The Heart of Our Cities and Out of a Fair, a City, both by an architect and mall designer name Victor Gruen, who urged the reconceptualization of the city as more ordered, rational and humane." (Emphasis mine.)
Sounds a lot like what I've been talking about all week. I might need to go hunt down those books...
Links:
Paleo-Future "Futuristic Cities"
Walt Disney and City Planning
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