Yeah Disney America was planned for Virginia horse country outside of DC, some of the most beautiful and wealthy real estate in the region. The NIMBY factor was fierce and the locals were DC elites who wanted no part of it.
It was more next door to horse country than actual horse country. The big rallying point was that it was going to encroach on the civil war battlefield nearby. Disney actually had a large buffer between the park and the battlefield. Now what would have been a preserved forest buffer is either a housing development or is planned to be one. In fact almost all the land that was going to be Disney America is all housing developments which have brought more people and traffic than Disney America would have and less jobs and tax revenue.
Years before Disney America the same people that led the opposition to it blocked Legoland from opening in the eastern half of the same county. Again the area is now all housing developments and shopping centers.
