7 ms·
The city is too old.
by zhuzhu 13y ago
The city is too old.
- cmajewsk 13y agoI don't know about 'too old', but it is old. It states in the article that..." the London Underground, opened in the city 150 years ago.: The county I am living in currently, will be celebrating only its 42 birthday tomorrow...think about it.
- corin_ 13y agoThat's a little like looking at a baby who was born a year ago and calling it old because of another that was born earlier today.
- nailer 13y agoLondon is a Roman town, much older than England (edit: and that's just name, as the poster below mentions the city has existed much longer). the queen still has to ask permission to enter the City (now called the square mile). The underground (aka the Tube) is new, but the city itself is very, very old.
- corin_ 13y agoSorry, I wasn't commenting on the age of London, just the method of defining any country/city as old compared to a decades-old country.
- trumbitta2 13y agoLondon is actually pre-roman, maybe pre-celtic, tbh.
- claudius 13y agoAnd I am very thankful that the undergrounds in the cities where I spent most of my time were built much later: Tunnelling techniques evolved quickly during the late 18th and early 19th century, allowing for much more ‘comfortable’ tunnel diameters – there is a reason the London Underground is called the tube, it’s difficult to stand in most of its trains.
- therobotking 13y agoThis is complete nonsense. It's perfectly easy to stand up in the underground train cars.
- nemesisj 13y agoThere are two sizes of tube trains - "deep tube" and "sub surface" trains. The deep tube trains are much smaller, and they are difficult to stand in if you're near the doors for anyone who's over 6 feet (I'm 6'4"). That said, it's not the end of the world, as you're only standing there when it's crowded, but it does happen. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#Trains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#Trains
- ColinWright 13y agoHow tall are you? I'm 5'11", or 1.80 m, and I have no trouble at all standing in trains on the London underground.
- claudius 13y agoRoughly 1.95m and while standing in the very middle is possible, it does feel more like an airplane rather than a train. Admittedly, I also like to have some space above my head and don’t always feel perfectly comfortable in tight spaces, so that might well contribute to a (perceived) lack of space.
- justincormack 13y agoMost of the early ones were "cut and cover" and quite big, rather than bored. And there is little difference in the sizes of the tunnelled ones.
- archangel_one 13y agoNope - the newest lines (Victoria, Jubilee) are all smaller diameter trains. The larger, squarer cut+covers (District, Circle, Metropolitan etc) are generally older, because you can't cut a trench across London for a new Tube line any more. It's still not hard to stand on any of the trains as long as you're not right beside the door on a Tube (unless you're extremely unusually tall, but the odds are well against that).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sambeau 13y agoTo add a little perspective I live in rural England in a small thatched house that appears on a map dated 1420. That's 30 years before Christopher Columbus was born — and Richard III; 100 years before Queen Elizabeth I was born. It was built before chimneys were invented: one was fitted at some point, probably at the same time the upstairs floor was put in (you can't have an upstairs without a chimney). The refurbishment date is scratched into the plaster work: Feb 1722.
- mjn 13y agoJust new enough that you can usually safely dig without too many delays, though. A problem with tunnel construction in very old cities, in places like Italy and Greece, is that you have a high probability of running into an interesting archaeological site, and then you have to pause construction and decide what to do about it. E.g.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21743758 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21743758
- swombat 13y agoThat has happened with Crossrail actually... for example, the Liverpool Street station digging uncovered countless artefacts from Bedlam, aka Bethlehem Mental Hospital. Human remains and other things that can't just be tunnelled through = delays...
- trumbitta2 13y agoNot so new as you may have thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium It's just way bigger than its ancient self, so you are less likely to find archeological sites.
- alister 13y ago> in very old cities ... running into an interesting archaeological site Why are archaeological sites are so far underground? Are ancient cities actually getting higher in altitude as old ruins get covered up? Why Pompeii was buried is clear. I am more curious about continuously occupied cities like Rome. How did the ruins get underground there? The best answer I could find was this: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/813/how-come-archaeological-ruins-are-always-underground http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/813/how-come-archae... It says that abandoned ancient cities have in fact risen in altitude over the centuries becoming "mounds". But it also says that Rome's famous ruins are at surface level, but doesn't explain ruins that have been found deep underground. So I'm left wondering if Rome and cities like it have gotten a lot higher or not.
- tallanvor 13y agoWell, it's not so much that the ruins are likely to be found "deep" underground, but some are as much as 3 or 4 stories underground. It used to be that it was easier to build on top of existing structures - or the remains thereof - rather than cart the trash out and start fresh. If you ever go to Rome, you'll notice that the Colosseum, for example, is at surface level, but most of the land around it is raised up. During street work, you can see parts where they've uncovered foundations, often digging down quite a ways to get to what was the street level at the time. In a place like Rome, when they uncover new ruins, they'll generally be studied for a while and then covered back up because it's the easiest way to preserve the site because they still need the land above it to be usable.
- ColinWright 13y agoThe difference between America and England is that the Americans think 100 years is a long time, whereas the English think 100 miles is a long way. Just for reference ... My house was built in 1903. The college I went to was founded in 1352. The city my wife grew up in was occupied by the Romans sometime between 70 and 80 AD.
- alexkus 13y ago> The difference between America and England is that the Americans think 100 years is a long time, whereas the English think 100 miles is a long way. Having lived in both countries I think that's a good way of thinking about it (for the average person.) (Obviously individuals will differ; 100 miles is a half day cycle ride for me so I don't think of it as that long a way.)
- batbomb 13y agoMaybe it's a little different because I grew up in New Mexico next to the Navajo reservation, right smack in the middle of tons of pueblos, but you have a very euro-centric view of the world if you think everybody in America thinks 100 years ago was a long time ago. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Pueblo http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Pueblo
- ColinWright 13y agoNor does everybody in England think 100 miles is a long way. It's possible to talk about majority views and refer to 90% of people without ignoring and trivialising the knowledge and experience of the minority. Are you suggesting that the majority of people in America think 100 years is a comparatively short time span? Probably not. I freely acknowledge and agree that there are Americans who think 100 years is a short time, and Englanders who think 100 miles is a short distance.