At Disney's new Anaheim theme park, designers are banking on a proven formula. Create facsimiles of real places, stir them together into a brick-and-mortar masala amid the aging sprawl of suburban north Orange County, and voila: another millions-of-visitors-a-year attraction. However contrived, Disney was the first to prove that people will pay good money to visit a place that mimics the real thing. But in another corner of the state, the City of Napa is banking on a different concept. It combines river restoration with urban revitalization. It piggy-backs on a broader effort to restore the Napa River watershed and provide flood protection — capitalizing on the opportunity to retrofit central district neighborhoods. In counterpoint to Disney's project, Napa is banking on visitor interest in real natural and urban attractions. So far, informal reports suggest that Disney's bean counters might need to start worrying. The gradually emerging critiques of the California Adventure theme park are lukewarm at best. And early reports indicate that visitor numbers are dramatically lower than expected. Disney has responded by ramping up advertising to generate more interest. Meanwhile, Napa officials are licking their chops. After all, their project has a lot going for it: recession-proof growth in the wine industry for which the City of Napa finally is emerging as a true business center; increased desire by Bay Area and Sacramento dwellers to get away on weekend trips; and the general rise in tourist interest in real places as destinations worthy of spending leisure time. Napa's project is not without precedent. Waterfront-oriented tourist projects are nothing new, and every large city on the West Coast has been, or is currently, involved in some urban design scheme that purports to return the waterfront to the community. In hindsight, the circa-1960s Ports O' Call development on the LA harbor front of San Pedro was a ground-breaking example of converting an area traditionally used for heavy industry into a tourist gathering place. Since then, the concept has been continually refined. San Francisco has converted much of the Embarcadero into a grand linear park/playground/promenade. Recently crowned with the Giant's PacBell Park, it is the most comprehensive example of the power of the waterfront as an urban gathering place. Rivers too, are increasingly seen as urban design opportunities. Early examples of riverfront remodels focused on park and greenway functions. Sacramento's American River Parkway and Riverside's Santa Ana Regional Park are both 1960s-era examples of reclaimed riparian places. More recently, West Sacramento built a minor league ballpark to anchor its Sacramento River urban retrofit (see CP&DR Local Watch, March 1999). But Napa's project has to be viewed as the state-of-the-art example of convergence of many planning goals in one project. It also benefits nicely from trends in tourism and urban culture. In a way, the project is at a confluence of two planning tributaries. One is the broader Napa River Watershed restoration project. Initiated in 1996 by the county flood control district, the project involves a host of state, federal, and local agencies. It received a huge financial boost when Napa County voters assessed themselves to the tune of $170 million to fund the valley-wide effort (see CP&DR, May 1998). Under the guise of flood protection and habitat restoration, the project aims to restore the river to as close to a natural system as possible while still providing reasonable flood protection. That is a lofty goal in the heart of the intensive wine-grape industry. The second tributary was the City's own revitalization efforts. After stumbling for decades, the redevelopment of downtown Napa finally found its focus with the river restoration project. It's own Napa Urban Waterfront Restoration Plan calls for fishing piers, boat docks, habitat restoration, and numerous access points. When coupled with other downtown tourist projects, such as the Robert Mondavi-funded American Center for Wine Food and the Arts that is scheduled to open this fall, an Opera House renovation and numerous additional historic restoration projects, the City finally has a good chance of drawing into downtown a large share of the 5 million annual wine country visitors. The divergent strategies of Napa and Disney for attracting a growing leisure consumer dollar make an interesting point about contemporary culture. In the Disney case, celebrating real places within a ticket booth-controlled park adheres to the truism that tourists prefer a safe haven from reality. In the Napa case, officials are betting on another viewpoint: That by celebrating the reality of the local history, economy, and natural features through restoration and enhancement, economic rewards will follow. If I were a betting man, I'd place my money on Napa. Stephen Svete, AICP, is president of Rincon Consultants, Inc., a Ventura-based consulting firm.