Small World

When I was about nine or ten, I decided my favorite ride at Disneyland was the Monorail.

I think what really appealed to me was the perverse way it broke out of the magic illusion of Disneyland and made you gaze upon the sprawling suburban horror that lurked just beyond the gates.

Of course none of that was part of the original plan for Disneyland. Walt's original vision was that Disneyland would expand into the outlying area, which, in 1955 was mostly agricultural land, and the park would be expanded in such a way as to block off any intrusions of the real world into the beautiful illusion inside the park.

The park was such a popular success, though, when it opened in 1955 that all kinds of motels, restaurants and retail establishments sprouted up around it, effectively choking off any further development of the park and making it really hard to hide the various grotesqueries across the street.

Walt and his brother Roy made sure not to repeat that mistake in Florida and set up dummy corporations to buy up (one small parcel at a time) the vast quantity of real estate that would eventually become Walt Disneyworld.

But like I said, I always had this fascination with the awkward interface between Disneyland and the unsightly sprawl surrounding it. In fact, I used to have these recurring dreams as a child about walking down Harbour Boulevard to Disneyland and having to traverse shanty towns and crowded, filthy open air markets.

Then there was this other dream where there would be a ride you had to go to, but the ride wasn't actually in Disneyland proper. It would be down the street a ways in a deserted warehouse district full of grime and debris.

I loved that dream!

And the funny thing is, as time goes by, I notice that the interface between the Magic Kingdom and the real world has gotten wider, and there's not as much of an attempt as there used to be to hide it. For example, the monorail goes way out beyond the park now, giving riders an eyeful of all the deplorable development on Harbour Boulevard.

And I notice in the new California Adventure park, you can see a lot of the larger hotels out by the convention center very clearly.

Well, who knows but that maybe in another fifty years, the illusion will collapse completely, and Disneyland will transform into something along the lines of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk where the carnival rides and cheap motels and homeless mendicants blend together into one squalorous dystopian stew.

And if I write a futuristic murder mystery based on this premise, what are the chances that I will be sued? Or worse, kidnapped by Disney thugs and forced to ride "It's a Small World" until I go mad!

Kurt "big daddy" True
6 march 2005