What nonsense!
Like zooeyjfp, I grew up in Southern California just 30 miles from Disneyland. I was born in the mid-50s around the time it opened. Like most people in Southern California who had relatives living outside of the state, we often got visits to see us when most of the time they really wanted to see Disneyland. So there were many summers when I went at least two or three times.
Look, Disneyland was just a gussied-up amusement park. Everybody knew that. It was an artificial environment, but what made it special was the attention to detail. The rides were always several notches above what you got at other amusement parks. Did Disney work hard to keep the real world outside of the park? Sure. So what? It was just a place to have a fun day. Nobody wanted to live there, and I can tell you that by the third or fourth visit of the summer I really didn't want to go.
For most visitors to Southern California, Disneyland took up a day or two of a visit that also included the beach, mountains, and many other tourist attractions. Most of these were in the "real world", and you saw humanity without any Disneyfication. So how was a day or two at Disneyland culturally destructive?
While some may see Disneyland as the forerunner of artificial environments, I see it as a forerunner of modern "human-centered" developments that mix retail with residential in a small area where everybody can walk to every destination. Disneyland proved you can provide a complex, stimulating environment in a very small space. It got people thinking differently.
