Theme Park Nation

A Theme Park Nation is one which aims to preserve some form of itself for all time and, in practice, ends up being a place for rich tourists to come visit and for poor locals to serve them while complaining about a housing crisis (usually) and the poor pay.

Many old-world cities end up being theme park nations because of the fact that most humans have formal constancy due to memories of good times. The preservation instinct directs a vicious cycle as people live in ever smaller homes ever farther from the center, and work ever more menial jobs so that visitors can see their city in its original form.

The classic theme park nations are ones with older histories like Greece and Italy and they have predictably waning economies. The primary purpose of their system is to serve Americans. Their people are like the workers at Disneyland, struggling mightily to maintain the illusion that the visitors pay to experience.

People there are eager to tell you how much better their lives are but in practice much of their time is spent complaining about rising housing prices and how tourists or visitors are making it so much harder to live there. The tourists and visitors, usually from non-TPNs, on the other hand spend most of their time there in enjoyment and then return to places where they don't much complain about rising housing prices and how tourists or visitors are making it so much harder to live there.

For the few who are mobile, it doesn't matter whether where they live chooses to be a TPN or not. But for those administering cities or nations, and for those less mobile, the choice is frequently whether one chooses to work at Disneyland or visit Disneyland, and they usually choose the former only to find themselves later unhappy.