So, why say anything about a city at all? Disney, even with its immense power in Florida, still had to abide by certain limits of Florida law, which mandated that in order for a government to exercise its planning and zoning authority and execute building inspections, it had to be something called a general-purpose local government. (The other kind of government, special-purpose government, includes entities like airport authorities.) Disney wanted to run its land like a general-purpose government, in much the way cities like Orlando are run today. So it promised a real city with real residents. Then it simply never followed through.

“It’s dishonest, but it’s ingenious,” Foglesong said.

“There’s a long history in Florida of a big developer coming to town, asking for a lot from the county and state government, making promises, and not carrying through on what they said they’d build,” he added. “What makes this a little more remarkable is it’s the beloved Walt Disney Company telling this untruth. And it’s at such a big scale.”

Technically, the towns of Buena Vista and Bay Lake, both of which sit within Disney’s self-governing district, do have permanent residents—which allows for some small degree of self-governance within the district. Both towns have a city council and elect a mayor. But the residents aren’t just random people. They’re long-term, management-level employees of the company. Too senior to be eligible for labor unions and too personally invested in the company to do anything counter to business interests, these residents are essentially Disney stand-ins. Disney can count on them to not do anything the company doesn’t want.

(via Instapundit)

[Essentially, Disney got the Reedy Creek Tax District through outright deception. It held onto it through decades of political and economic manipulation. As long as they didn’t rock the political boat, there wasn’t much reason for politicians of either party to disturb the status quo, however. Then Disney tried to muscle the Florida legislature over education policy and parental rights, and that changed the entire political calculus. — Ed]