Anaheim

Anaheim is a case study in catastrophic reinvention. In 1857, fifty German families from San Francisco formed the Los Angeles Vineyard Society and named their colony 'Anaheim'—combining the nearby Santa Ana River with the German word for home. They planted grapes and built a thriving wine industry. By the 1860s, Anaheim was one of California's premier wine regions. Then in 1885, a grape blight destroyed everything.

The colonists pivoted to citrus. For the next 70 years, Anaheim was orange groves and walnut trees—until Walt Disney bought 160 acres of orchards in 1953. Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, and Orange County's agricultural economy transformed overnight. The orange groves didn't die of disease this time; they died of economics. Theme park jobs and tourist dollars replaced harvest seasons.

What followed is often called the 'Miracle of Anaheim'—a tourism-dependent economy that proved remarkably stable. Disneyland has now drawn over 650 million visitors. In 2024, the resort generated $16.1 billion in regional economic impact and supported 102,000 jobs. The city recorded 26 million visitors and $6.6 billion in spending. Unemployment in March 2025 was 3.8%—below the regional average.

The DisneylandForward expansion, approved in 2024, commits Disney to $1.9-2.5 billion in new attractions, hotels, and entertainment districts. Median home prices hold at $900,000, driven by proximity to what is essentially a single employer's ecosystem.

By 2026, Anaheim tests whether a city built on two successive agricultural catastrophes and one entertainment monopoly can sustain its third economic identity—or whether dependence on a single corporation has created a new kind of monoculture.