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Though it would not be a collection of towering skyscrapers and electronic sidewalks, Celebration, a brand new city in Central Florida, would be themed after a typical small American town of the 1940s and ’50s. Still, its charter would follow Walt Disney’s view of a self-sufficient city linked together with advanced technologies. Celebration was built in northwest Osceola County on previously-owned company property. Its features include residential neighborhoods, its own school, office buildings, hospital, and mall, but using the latest in communications, mechanical, and other technologies to operate and educate daily. To handle the large amount of requests for homes in Celebration, officials used a lottery system to grant homes to the first bidders.
During preliminary planning for Celebration, 600 acres to be developed were discovered to be wetlands. These state-protected areas were bound by law to be preserved and prevented companies across the state from developing on their own land.
The Walt Disney Company, however, made an agreement with the South Florida Water Management District that allowed the company to develop the designated acres in exchange for purchasing the 8,500-acre Walker Ranch, only twelve miles south of the Resort. Consisting of wetlands, endangered species, and sixteen separate plant communities, the ranch was close to being destroyed by overgrazing, lumbering, and digging.
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