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> Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts, Many ancient civilizations knew not to build on coasts. Beijing, Xi'an, Cairo, Rome, Paris, Mexico
by dheera 5y ago
> Right, and nobody should build cities on rivers or coasts,
Many ancient civilizations knew not to build on coasts. Beijing, Xi'an, Cairo, Rome, Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, London, Moscow, Kyoto, most of these cities of critical governmental and strategic importance were not built on coasts for very good reasons.
And then you have some modern hipsters after the 17th century who decided not to take a history lesson and started to build NYC, Shanghai, LA, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Singapore, Washington DC, and other cities on the coasts. Note that none of these cities have much history to them, for a reason. Not a good plan. Humans are pretty dumb.
- Jtsummers 5y agoAncient civilizations did build on coasts, you're cherry picking a handful of cities that weren't, but most (if not all, going off memory) of the cities you listed were built along rivers. Building on the coast gave (and gives) access to trade and fishing which are of great utility to most societies. Besides, avoiding the coast itself doesn't do you much good. Earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding (from rivers or rain), drought, fire, tornadoes can hit in many different areas even away from the coast. Hell, hurricanes can go pretty far inland and do quite a bit of damage (more from the flooding than the winds, but also the winds, at that point). You'd be hard pressed to find a totally safe place on this planet that could support the entire human population. You'll still need the hazardous areas for agricultural and mining purposes if nothing else, and unless people can handle a 1000 mile commute, you'll end up with communities and cities growing in those places.
- finnh 5y agoYou seem to have a lot of anger. You might want to consider letting some of it go - it's a heavy load. Speaking from experience.
- vkou 5y agoYou've cherry-picked a bunch of non-coastal cities, but completely missed that nearly all of them were built on rivers. Which have all of the same problems with flooding as coasts, but much worse. Coasts flood when you get a major storm causing a surge, or a major earthquake. Rivers flood when the seasons change, when it rains upstream, when you get a mudslide upstream, when there's a major earthquake sending a tsunami upriver... Why do you think cities built on coasts and rivers on the whole grew, and out-competed cities that were built inland?
- GekkePrutser 5y agoI'm pretty happy living in a coastal city though. Which by the way was founded in the middle ages :)