Val d'Europe

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Val d'Europe (lit. Valley of Europe) is a part of the new town known as Marne-la-Vallée. The final area of the district is currently in development. It is located around 35 km to the east of Paris, near Disneyland Resort Paris. Val d'Europe was built in conjunction with the Walt Disney Company, who wished to create a town near Disneyland.

[edit] Description & history

Val d'Europe is made up of five communities, which have grouped together to form a town council. The five districts are:

The area is primarily given over to Parc Disneyland, as per the contract between the government and the Walt Disney Company. One of the terms was that Disneyland immediately got 19.40 km² of land to build the Disney Village.

Euro Disney SCA is the only private company within France that has had such a large say in the development of an urban area of this scale. The government was represented by an EPA (governmental development company). Disney also developed the new town of Marne-la-Vallée.

Val d'Europe shopping mall

The building work started in 1987, after Jacques Chirac (then French Prime Minister) and Disney signed the contract. Val d'Europe was to be opened along with Disneyland Paris and its associated hotels in 1992. The villages of Bailly-Romainvilliers, Magny-le-Hongre and Serris were to be made into housing estates for the employees.

It was not until the start of 1998 that Val d'Europe saw the opening of its shopping centre, which included a hypermarket and boutiques. However, the garden centre (Delbard) was opened in 2004 in a building to the south of the shopping centre.

As of 2005, Val d'Europe has a population of 19,700 people, but this is expected to increase to 40,000 people and 60,000 employees. 19.43 out of 30.00 km² is currently given over to development by Disney. Euro Disney SCA has spent €5,000 million ($5,953,266,855/£3,420,806,667), compared to €500 million ($595,326,686 /£342,080,667) from the French government.

The architectural style takes inspiration from the "neo-traditional" style of Haussmann, who designed some of the buildings seen in western Paris. The town was designed based upon New Urbanism, a design philosophy of the 1940s which is frequently used in the United States. Disney had previously created a New Urbanist city in Florida, known as Celebration.