But Anaheim residents and elected officials haven\u2019t always seen eye-to-eye with the company. <\/p>\n
Political battles over corporate subsidies<\/a>, campaign spending and minimum wage laws<\/a> in recent years have cast Disneyland\u2019s influence over Anaheim\u2019s governance in a more critical light.<\/p>\n The mouse-eared milieu serves as a case study for co-authors of a new book,<\/a> \u201cDisneyland Politics: How a Medium-Sized City and Corporate Giant Coexist.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Burns, a political science professor at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, teamed with Max Bieganski, his former research assistant, and Matthew Thomas, a political science professor at Cal State Chico, in examining the political relationship.<\/p>\n The book weighs how Anaheim has balanced Disneyland\u2019s interests with that of residents \u2014 especially when they conflict.<\/p>\n TimesOC spoke with Prof. Burns about \u201cDisneyland Politics\u201d and its conclusions about The Mouse\u2019s political muscle.<\/p>\n What prompted you and your co-authors to take a deep dive into Disney\u2019s political relationship in Anaheim through this book?<\/p>\n Burns: I tend to study places that are near where I work and that I\u2019m familiar with. I started to look around Orange County. I liked Disneyland and just thought, \u201cWhat are the politics of this place?\u201d What does Disneyland want from the city? What does the city want from Disneyland? How do they react? What is their relationship? Those are kinds of questions that I have studied in urban politics, and so I asked them about Disneyland. <\/p>\n Fissures in the relationship have framed the politics of the last decade or so. But looking back at Anaheim\u2019s history, what are some examples of past dust-ups? <\/p>\n Burns: I can see the start of some public pushback around the time … that Westcot was proposed, which was going to be the West Coast Epcot. This is around the early 1990s. The city and residents asked Disney to make changes to their plan for Westcot \u2014 it was more than 60 conditions\u2014 and Disney did that.<\/p>\n When the Anaheim Resort district was created in the mid-\u201990s, there was a clear difference between it and the rest of the city. One of the things that we talk about in the book is the idea of two Anaheims. When people look at Disneyland and their neighborhood, they see two Anaheims, one that\u2019s valued and one that\u2019s not as valued.<\/p>\n One of the provocative terms in the book is the \u201cDisneyland Imperative.\u201d What has that politically translated to in Anaheim?<\/p>\n Burns: It\u2019s the sense that you don\u2019t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. As Disneyland goes, so goes the rest of the city. The Disneyland Imperative is that in order for Anaheim to succeed, local government has to put money and concentrate its resources and attention into Disneyland.<\/p>\n People bought that for a while, but I think they started to look and see that the advantages that Disney got didn\u2019t make their neighborhoods better. <\/p>\n N\/A<\/p>\n (Courtesy of Temple University Press)<\/p>\n Between 2016-2018, a council majority emerged as \u201cthe People\u2019s Council\u201d under former Mayor Tom Tait. It wasn\u2019t aligned with the Disneyland Imperative. What is the legacy of that council as you see it? <\/p>\n Burns: Two things happened. First, people saw that Disney could be defeated. I think it also changed the terms of the relationship between Disneyland and the city \u2014 where Disneyland is less likely to ask for tax rebates. Any Disney deal now also has to benefit the city. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n