Walter Disney

¶ … Politics of Disney Land There were a number of different reasons that Disney's attempt to create a theme park in Virginia was so widely debated and controversial. Perhaps the best way to deconstruct that controversy is to identify relevant stakeholders and address their concerns and then compare them to one another. One of the most eminent stakeholders was Disney itself. The company was attempting to build an American history theme park based on the very history of the country itself.

In doing so, Disney was looking to generate revenue by capitalizing on all of the tourist money that it could attract to its park. Its hopes to do so were largely bolstered by the fact that the White House is not too far from the proposed location, and that there are a number of other historic sites (many of which pertain to the Civil War) in that area as well.

Another relevant stakeholder is the town in which the park would be located and the political interests of the state of Virginia. From a purely municipal and state perspective, this stakeholder was unequivocally interested in the park. According to an article about the controversy, "the Virginia legislature has overwhelmingly approved the idea" (Krauthammer). In fact, Disney was able to attain the support of the locals in the area due to the economic advantages that its theme park would facilitate.

Those advantages largely include the fact that, "the complex was supposed eventually to generate 19,000 jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue" (Kotz and Abramson). Another relevant group of stakeholder are a group of history purists who believe that Disney would desecrate the land and taint the notion of American history. This group's primary concern is that Disney's theme park would create a cartoonish version of American history and real events that would ultimate sully the perception of genuine history.

The final group of stakeholders involves those who are concerned about urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is a term to denote the general perception that the literal history of the country -- in the form of land and the structures that sit upon it -- is being eroded by urbanization. Urbanization, of course, is the building of factories, theme parks, living quarters, parking lots and other facets of life in a city.

The problems between this group of stakeholders and that of the history purists are relatively the same, although there is a fine distinction between them. Each of them believes that Disney's theme park will erase history; the former thinks that it will do so by eradicating literal historical structures, the latter believes it will do so by creating a historical perception that is incongruous with true U.S. history.

The tactics of these two stakeholders -- as far as convincing Disney not to build the theme park are both vested in an emotional appeal to nostalgia, and to things (history) that have long been dead. It will be difficult to create a win-win situation between both groups of stakeholders: those that want the park built and those that do not want it built. Their interests conflict with one another. Such a controversial issue.