#sinking cities

[thinkthisthru]

How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods | Kotchakorn Voraakhom

From London to Tokyo, climate change is causing cities to sink -- and our modern concrete infrastructure is making us even more vulnerable to severe flooding...

This is a fantastic, moving TED talk about the need for sustainable development in cities

[leastshittyexpats]

Mexico City Is Sinking

We recently learned on a tour of Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral that Mexico City is sinking, and fast.  For a point of comparison, Venice is sinking about half an inch a year, a rate that’s significant enough to make international news.  Mexico City, however, is sinking around 8 inches annually in some areas.  In the photo above that Alison took on our tour, you can see the old city has sunk meters below the raised platform of the current city

Of course, the problem with a sinking city is it doesn’t sink evenly.  All over the city, buildings visibly lean and tilt.  Heavy and old buildings wobble and start to collapse, with colonial churches and buildings serving as the first victims.  The Cathedral is no exception and is noticeably sliding to one side.  It’s only a matter of time — years, decades, or centuries — before the signature monument of Spanish Mexico comes tumbling down.

The cause of all these headaches is water, soil, and human (or colonial) stupidity.  When the Spanish came to Tenochtitlan, they discovered a city built on top of a shallow lake named Texcoco.  The Aztecs built their implausible capital city on artificial islands that housed structures made of light volcanic rock.  The miraculous water city was suitable for 250,000 people, but when the Spanish razed the city they drained the lake and decided to build their new European capital on the recently dried lakebed.  Building a city on the graves of their enemies would show the New World that the Spanish had replaced the Aztecs as the rulers of Mexico!

The only problem is a former lakebed is an absurd place to build a city.  Mexico City is prone to floods and the soft clay and lava rock beneath the streets can’t hold large structures permanently.  As the groundwater has been depleted, the city is turning into a series of lumpy hills.  One day, every trace of the Spanish era will be wiped away, except for the ecological foolhardiness of the city itself.

Better see it while it lasts….

~ T

[milesbutterball]

Cities Are Sinking | EarthDate

[liberty1776]

The Fate of Atlantis?

[indianflash123]

Sinking Cities: Subsidence Threatens Major U.S. East Coast - Indian Flash

Discover startling reality as major U.S. East Coast cities experience accelerated subsidence, posing threats to infrastructure, communities

[sdickers]

7 places that are sinking faster than anywhere else in the US http://va.topbuzz.com/s/dbUxYb

7 places that are sinking faster than anywhere else in the US http://va.topbuzz.com/s/dbUxYb

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[theseashell]

On love: I prefer sinking cities

And sometimes I wonder if it's that dark, gloomy, melancholy side of me that  knows the end is approaching and savours the briefest of moments, the sense of immediacy, the glimpses of throttled life, that surround them.  How bizarre is that? I used to stay awake at night and wonder what it would be like to be with someone for the rest of eternity; would I get sick of him?  How, exactly, do people do it? What about the chase, the excitement, the rush?  What about the unpredictability?  The limitlessness of it all scared me. I don't know about sick, but I'm downright delirious about you, around you.   I used to worry that I'd never know love, that the only kind of love I knew would be that kind of love for sinking cities - fleeting, uncommitted, strings-free, and paradoxically, safe. So safe. Now I know that the love that washes over me, that completely overwhelms me to the point that poems churn from the butterflies I feel every time you step through the door, is different than the kind I have for sinking cities.  It's different because I never want it to end.