Good Corporate Citizenry

Florida futuristic tot lot trains the wage slaves of tomorrow

Today's Washington Post carries a feature on a Ft. Lauderdale amusement park called Wannado City, where kids 3-13 get to try on jobs with various corporate sponsors, including State Farm, Spirit Airlines, Publix, and--duh--the Cartoon Network.

The size of 2 1/2 football fields, this $40 million indoor theme park near Fort Lauderdale provides 3- to 13-year-olds with what its developers say is a taste of the grown-up world. They get to "play" at more than 100 professions, from attorney to paleontologist, dentist to pizza maker, hairdresser to detective. For their hard work, they earn Wongas, which can be spent on cookies, rock climbing or carnival rides purchased from park employees, or manicures and hair styling done by other role-playing youngsters.

The price of admission to a day as a supermarket cashier or a Coca-Cola bottler? $35 bucks, making it perhaps the most ingenious example of capitalism's ability to sell coals to Newcastelians since the Pet Rock.

Read more here.