Higher ground
National Geographic’s July cover story ponders the mysterious downfall for Angkor, the most extensive urban complex of the preindustrial world and crown jewel of the Khmer kingdom which reigned Southeast Asia from the ninth to the 15th century:
Angkor is the scene of one of the greatest vanishing acts of all time … As many as 750,000 people lived in Angkor, its capital, which sprawled across an area the size of New York City’s five boroughs … By the late 16th century, when Portuguese missionaries came upon the lotus-shaped towers of Angkor Wat—the most elaborate of the city’s temples and the world’s largest religious monument—the once resplendent capital of the empire was in its death throes.The article is threaded with speculation ranging from religious upheaval to bloodthirsty foreign invaders. What’s most likely is that the city’s vast water storage dependence failed during an extended drought and was abandoned for coastal settlements.
Pushing that story aside, it’s interesting to immediately switch to the article in the today’s Telegraph titled US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive.
The government is looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.Appearing on that shortlist is Detroit, which the New York weekly Outlook described in 1929 as “The most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow.” This wasn’t sensationalism, at very least Detroit was widely perceived this way.
Detroit is Angkor, and this makes me think: It’s astounding that after 500 years of similar cases our collective consciousness and sophistication doesn’t prevent us from similar short-sighted and sometimes irresponsible development of urban areas! It should be instinctual by now, like Don’t touch the pan! It’s hot!
Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing something twice and expecting a different result.
Maybe it’s time to move New Orleans to higher ground?
