Celebration was simply the last incarnation of a more ambitious Walt Disney project to create the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), which was finally turned into a theme park.

The original Disney project involved building a real township with a business park, public facilities and housing spread over 110 square kilometers of land bought in Florida in 1965, drawing on the full range of available technology to improve quality of life for inhabitants (with a forecast population of 20,000 people). The result would reflect Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" utopia. Disney defined the project as follows: "It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and educational opportunities. In EPCOT, there will be no slum areas because we won't let them develop. There will be no landowners and therefore no voting control. People will rent houses instead of buying them, and at modest rentals. There will be no retirees; everyone must be employed." He even planned to cover the entire city with a glass dome to control the climate!

After Walt Disney's death, his brother took over the project and turned it into a technology theme park. However, the Disney Company did not stop there: in 1994, it opened Celebration, a city designed as a traditional small American town. The architecture was based on the concept of New Urbanism, reflecting a neo-traditional design, with five different styles authorized (Colonial, Mediterranean, French, Victorian and New England). Life was highly structured: lawns had to be regularly mowed and residents were not allowed to park in front of their homes. The color of the houses also had to be approved.

The Disney Company eventually sold the town to Lexin Capital, an investment company. Nearly 10,000 people now live in Celebration.