Disney World at 50: What would Orlando be like if The Mouse went somewhere else?

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The Sentinel asked a former political leader, an economist and two Disney historians to weigh in on this hypothetical what-if: What if Walt Disney hadn't built his theme park in Orlando? What would Orlando be like today?

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Close your eyes and pretend Disney World was never built in Orlando.

Cinderella Castle — gone. Poof. No Space Mountain, no Spaceship Earth, no nothing.

The what-if game also applies to the packed flights arriving into Orlando with Mickey Mouse-wearing youngsters and the tourist shops along U.S. Highway 192 — they aren’t here, either. And without Disney, surely its competitors Universal and SeaWorld would not have built their theme parks down the road.

Without Disney “Orlando would not have become a tourist town in the way that it did. And that’s because Orlando is too far away from the coast,” said Richard Foglesong, author of “Married to the Mouse,” a book that explores Disney World’s early history.

So what would Orlando have become in a theme park-free alternate reality?

The Orlando Sentinel asked a longtime community leader, an economist and Disney historians to weigh in on what Orlando would be like today without the region’s largest employer and the world’s biggest tourist attraction set up by Walt Disney 50 years ago.

Former Orange County Commission Chair Linda Chapin has a ready-to-go quip when asked the question: What would Orlando be like today without Disney?

“Lakeland,” Chapin said.

“I always say Lakeland, which means that we would be a pretty Florida town with lakes. We would experience growth in any event simply because we’re pretty and warm. But we would have missed out on all the major advantages that Disney brought us ... We were lucky to be picked.”

From Chapin’s perspective, Disney put Orlando on the map. Without it, most people around the country would likely have never heard of Orlando. It would be just another small city in Florida.

Having Disney in town caused an explosion of enrollment at the University of Central Florida and the Orlando International Airport to become one of the busiest airports in the country, Chapin said.

“I believe we certainly would never have had an international airport of major repute. We probably would not have had the second-largest university in the country. We certainly would not have had a vibrant and exciting arts community,” said Chapin, whose political career includes serving as the chairwoman of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority and being elected county chair from 1990 to 1998. “So in that case, we probably would not have built what is going to be one of the best performing arts centers in the world.”

But like most things in life, the positives come with “mixed blessings,” Chapin said.

“Without Disney, we would not have a service sector economy where low wages dominate our workforce,” Chapin said.

By October, many Disney union jobs will offer starting wages of $15 an hour. Outside Disney, many restaurants and attraction jobs in Orlando pay less. Affordable housing remains a major issue where some who work in Central Florida’s hospitality industry simply cannot afford to live here.

If the emphasis on the tourism jobs were gone if Disney built somewhere else, could Orlando’s economy have been more diverse and attracted different industries or more Fortune 500 companies?

Chapin isn’t so sure.

Orlando doesn’t have the same draw as Miami or Tampa or Jacksonville. It’s not a great international city or a ritzy beach town. There aren’t any ports or a river. It’s tough to see what would have drawn corporate headquarters or technology into town, she said.

“There some things that make Orlando desirable,” said Hector Sandoval, a University of Florida economics assistant professor.

Orlando is centrally located in the state. And Orlando is strategically near a major artery with the Interstate 4 and the interchange with Florida’s Turnpike, Sandoval pointed out.

But would that have been enough?

“The thing is Orlando will be competing with other places like Lakeland or Ocala,” Sandoval said.

The iconic Mickey Mouse balloons on sale at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in February 2021. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Foglesong still believes the high-tech industries could have taken off in Orlando, pointing to the 1968 opening of Florida Technological University.

Back then, the school originally specialized in engineering and tech. When Orlando grew after Disney World’s opening, the school eventually pivoted to a more general focus and rebranded itself as UCF.

Without Disney and the population growth, maybe FTU wouldn’t have changed its specialty and could have been a springboard into Orlando’s tech industry today, Folglesong suggested.

“One could imagine that the state Legislature and especially local politicians would have, in the absence of Disney, been more focused on growing that nascent high tech industry here into something more,” Foglesong said.

Yet Sandoval warns there would be a trade-off if Orlando had never developed its mega tourism economy.

Tech jobs would pay better but there would likely be fewer of them compared with tourism, he said. Walt Disney World Resort alone employed about 75,000 people before the pandemic.

If Walt Disney chose to build his Magic Kingdom somewhere else than Orlando, what would sit today on those thousands of acres of land in Central Florida?

Not much, predicts Disney historian Aaron Goldberg, author of “Buying Disney’s World.”

Building Disney World took a superhuman effort. The swampy, untamed land required extensive construction to keep it dry, Goldberg said.

“Disney went to great lengths,” he said.

“Would anybody else go to that trouble to actually do anything? I sort of think, probably not,” Goldberg said. “I feel like there’d be a lot of cows still in Central Florida.”

grusson@orlandosentinel.com