Actually, Cars Land was announced after Potter broke ground.
Sorry, I'm ignoring the meltdown going on to just have a side conversation here.
Rumours of Carsland circulated December 2006 with unofficial concept art released by Disney in an imagineering book.
The first rumours of Harry Potter seem to occur around January 2006 (although clearly both Disney and Universal would have been well aware of that development).
Harry Potter was announced May 31, 2007
Cars Land was announced October 17, 2007
Harry Potter may have had some backstage prep in January 2008, but it's hard to nail down
The Flying Unicorn, Enchanted Oak Tavern and Dragon's Keep Closed July 7, 2008
So to recap:
-Carsland came to fruition fairly independently at the same time as Potter.
-Disney is lumbering and takes forever, that's why it took so damn long and everyone thinks Potter was 'first', it was only just the first to actually be built.
-Pandora on the other hand was
Definitely a knee jerk reaction to the huge crowds Potter had been bringing it, both Uni and Disney were shocked, no doubts about that.
-Star Wars will have very much learned from it's three most important predecessors: Hogsmead, Carsland and Diagon. We can mostly thank Carsland and Diagon in particular that made the BOD say "no, you need to do this right from the start. This needs to be the best yet".
-But, Carsland was in no way a result of Harry Potter, despite what people seem to think with their fuzzy memories.