Disney Impact on Housing

This week I read an article that talked about the impact Disney had on the urban development of Orlando and its neighboring counties. I found this article very interesting because I learned a lot of the Disney vision that I had not known before. Before reading this article I had the assumption that after Disney was created in Orlando that the urban population and housing would have increased dramatically due to the tourism and opening up of jobs. I was correct in this assumption but also learned about the impact of the creation of interstate 4 and the racial and social divisions that were in Orlando and surrounding counties. Prior to the development of Disney, Orlando was known as “sleepy”. The economy was primarily based on transportation and warehousing. Once Walt Disney brought his vision of a new reality in the form of Disney Land it opened up many opportunities such as jobs. This impacted the housing industry so much because a lot of the people that migrated to Florida and were seeking jobs couldn’t afford housing directly in Orlando so they moved to neighboring towns such as Winter Park. I found this article very helpful and interesting and am planning on hitting the archives this week for more research.