Here's Main Street, which is designed to appear long and winding, so that when you first enter Disneyland, the park seems impossibly massive with tons to explore:
"Help, I've been trapped here since 1984, and I can't find my way out!"
Note how distant the castle seems from the entrance to Main Street? Look at how tiny it is, all the way down there! That seems like a pretty healthy walk, doesn't it? Now here's the exact same stretch of Main Street, viewed from the opposite direction -- the building at the center of the picture is the entrance to the park:
"Oh, there it is."
Well shit, it's right there! We'll be home in no time! The street is the same length in both pictures, but thanks to the magic of forced perspective, it sure doesn't look that way. Basically when you walk in, the buildings down the street aren't smaller due to distance; they're physically smaller so as to appear farther away (the second and third floors of the shops aren't actually tall enough for a person to stand up in).