Why we should design cities like Disney | Zach DeBoer

Elise Hu (0:03)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hue.

During the pandemic, artist Zach DeBoer fell down a very specific rabbit hole, watching hours and hours of videos about Disney theme parks, how they're built, their history, their design. But the more he watched, the more he saw something beyond escapism. To Zach, the parks presented a case study in what happens when human experience is the top priority in designing a place. And that, he noticed, is usually the first thing cut in the real world.

Zach DeBoer (0:39)

Nothing influences our lives more than place. Our surroundings affect our relationships, emotions, habits, even how long we'll live.

Elise Hu (0:46)

Zach works with what's called creative place making, or using art and design to transform the places people love. And in his talk, he asks a fun question.

Zach DeBoer (0:56)

Why do these places only exist on vacation? What if we made our main streets more like Main Street USA?

Elise Hu (1:03)

From density to walkability to what he calls magic. Zach lays out concrete place making ideas that any town of any size could use to be a happier, healthier place to live. It might change the way you see your own Main Street. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the Day.

Zach DeBoer (1:34)

During the pandemic, I got really into watching videos about Disney theme parks. How they're built, their history, upcoming developments, stuff like that. As I work from home, I would even put on these long 4K video walkthroughs of the parks up on a second monitor and just let them play in the background like a window into another world. But it wasn't just the escapism that drew me to these places. As an artist, I saw the parks as unique studies of what happens when art, human experience and emotion were the highest priority when it came to designing a place. In the real world, those are usually the first things cut from any budget. But at Disney theme parks, they were essential.

Because of this, guests are able to immerse themselves in fantastical worlds and transcend their daily routines. They can embrace feelings of wonder and joy while creating lifelong memories with their family and friends. Too many Disney theme parks truly are the happiest place on earth. You see, nothing influences our lives more than place. Our surroundings affect our relationships, emotions, habits, even how long we'll live. So if we design places with care, purpose, with the human experience in mind, we can nurture well-being, foster creativity and innovation, build stronger, more resilient communities. And while pockets of great places exist all over this country, most of America looks aesthetically bad. They're a drain on our physical, mental and economic health. But our places weren't always like this. American cities at the turn of the 20th century were designed for people to traverse, experience and understand. Work, food, school, whatever you might need was only a short walk or trolley ride away. Developments and street were smaller, and folks weren't as spread out as they are now. And that meant you were more likely to know your neighbors and be more engaged with what was going on in your community. Downtown streets were shared by people, carriages, cyclists and vendors. And as they grew larger, more diverse, cities would develop their own unique identities and cultures that became sources of pride for anyone that called it home. This wasn't like a new thing. For thousands of years across continents, this is how we built cities. But at the start of the 20th century, the way we built our places and who or what they were built for would change dramatically due to one invention.

From 1900 to 1915, the number of automobiles in America went from 8,000 to over 2 million. And while the first cars shared the road, it wasn't long before their dangerous high speeds and exhaust fumes drove vendors, cyclists and people back onto the sidewalks. The streets now belonged solely to the car. But this would only be the first change to the American landscape it would be responsible for. And just like Disney's cars, the second one was even worse.

The economic boom in America after World War II led to a series of disastrous experiments in urban planning that continue to affect us today. The mass exodus of people from city centers to the suburbs on the edge of town, restrictive zoning laws that separated building uses, segregated people based on race or economic level, and destructive government funded projects like highway expansions and urban renewal that demolished historic buildings, erased entire city blocks, usually just for more places to park their cars.