When I say that Tomorrowland is a disorganized mess, I am not referring to the aesthetics or attraction line up. Spatial organization is about how spaces are created, how program elements are situated and how people move about the space. Tomorrowland ignores six decades of good theme park design, but that should not be shocking given its lead (whose Mark VII project started with telling Bob Gurr to pound sand and ended with a monorail fleet one short that did not fit on the beam way and had no ventilation). Since I have made similar comments and been asked to expand on them elsewhere I am going to take the long way around to answering this question so that I can repost it where appropriate.
In the design of architectural spaces there are two primary concepts relating to how objects (most typically walls) shape space: space making objects and objects in space. The classic example of space making objects are old city squares or typical urban streets. They are well defined in the boundaries and image by their surroundings. An object in space would be something like a barn sitting in a field, the expanse is what really defines that place. Theme parks are very much built around the definition of space, space is where theme is expressed and the experience of a theme park is one of moving through a carefully choreographed series of spaces that create an emotional resonance.
In order to handle crowds Disney's strategy has typically been to expand the space. At the EPCOT Center this worked because Disney rather fully embraced the notion of an object in space. Each pavilion is a discrete entity and the intended focus of one's experience. Walking through Future World or around World Showcase is intentionally a secondary experience. The space works to define the separation. Even if World Showcase was built out each pavilion would still surround the large walkway and massive lagoon, and entering this large space would still occur in between the experience of each pavilion.
At Tokyo Disneyland, trying to fit the larger spaces into the traditional Disneyland framework has created a degree of awkwardness. There are large corridors that plow through the park and the experience is somewhat disconnected. This disconnect is most notable with Westernland where there are just too many conflicting notions of scale that still don't quite work well even when the expanse of the frontier would be a desirable experience. Potentially learning from their weirdness, the Euro Disneyland project properly rethought crowd management by introducing more variety to the means of moving about the park. The most famous example of this is the arcades which flank Main Street, USA but how many people realize that Liberty Arcade is part of a larger series of covered walkways which extend into Frontierland proper?
Shanghai Disneyland takes the large walkway strategy of Tokyo Disneyland and turns it up to 11 by trying to combine the World Showcase strategy. This though is a contradiction. A themed land is not a series of discrete experiences but one singular experience. A strong land acts as one and is therefore most suitable to defined space. One moved amongst and along the objects which define the space, which define the theme. The lands of Shanghai Disneyland have no definition. Imagine Main Street, USA as only half of its western side and the rest all being open space. The park throughout lacks definition. Objects sit in relation to little else and are supposed to be connected with other objects that off in the distance (a situation which will only grow worse as the foliage matures). This openness of space is made worse (most notably on Mickey Ave and Fantasyland) by overly reducing the scale of the buildings. Forced perspective (while often cut short to only be such) is not just reducing the heights of upper levels of a building. That is merely a means and it is in fact supposed to be an illusion. Effective forced perspective as traditionally used by Disney creates the illusion of multiple levels without such levels actually being habitable. Throughout Shanghai Disneyland such illusions do not exist. The upper floors are clearly way to be small for their to be occupied space. The result of buildings that are too small in very large spaces is that the non-human scale of both the building and the surrounding space is emphasized.
Finally, we get to the mess that is Tomorrowland. Like the rest of the park it follow the open space and defined edge pattern. It avoids the overly diminutive buildings issue but does't really fix them by lacking any sort of real definition to its scale. The land is the tossed into a blender by introducing the Armchair Imagineer's dream of multiple levels. Multiple levels look cool. They are part of the kinetics of a vibrant city as there is an interplay in the activation of horizontal and vertical space. Multiple levels though are not a big thing in theme parks, even when crowds are a concern, because they jumble the explicit shaping of the guest experience. Notions of push and pull, weenies, etc. all get complicated when there are many ways about and are seemingly tossed aside in Tomorrowland. There is no clear distinct path of travel. There is no clear means of moving about the land. It is a massive plaza and edge which abuts another plaza. There is no hierarchy of forms or places, too much tries to be important and it muddles the whole. There is no clear path that takes one directly through the land. TRON Lightcycle Power Run is best visible and accessed coming from the south (Gardens of Imagination / Mickey Ave) but this is practically a dead end situation. This is the upper level walkway that also access the main dining facility of rate land and the Jet Packs and attraction but it has no real connection the massive plaza below. Yes, there are stairs, but they are not part of the means of travel. This lack of hierarchy is then repeated by the lower level which lacks strong edges to give it definition and must be navigates entirely by signage. The light cycles are not dominate in view when entering and when they do finally asset themselves as the marquee attraction he design suggest an entry far removed while the person and object of desire are so physically close.
On the whole the park has failed at its organization and employed no well designed weenies. Since the edge condition is the dominate defining characteristic there is little to no visual hierarchy as everything sits rather independently. The Princess Sorority House and Roaring Mountain are the two most clearly visible landmarks throughout the park but also fail to act as weenies. There is no clear means of getting to either. The Gardens of Imagination (I guess random stuff tossed together is now considered imaginative) object direct movement towards Enchanted Storybook Castle. Roaring Rapids' entrance is not at all near its mighty peak, but would be passed on the journey if entering from the Gardens of Imagination. Treasure Cove is the only land that really starts to create any sense of defined space and its spectacular E-Ticket attractions turns its back on this peacemaking with the entrance instead located at the edge and facing Fantasyland.
