Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Ericson2314 2123 days ago
Just so you aren't in for a shock, "millennia" is including all sorts of neolithic stuff in the ground that could probably well be said of places in the US too. In terms of street layout, little is per-roman, and in terms of buildings, little is > 1000 years old.

The most common thing would be more 17th 18th 19th century buildings (in increasing frequency), and if you go to parts of Massachusetts (and maybe Virginia) you can get at least some 18th and 19th century stuff. Go to Havana, San Juan, Salvador (in Brazil) or other old colonial capitals and get more old buildings in sturdier materials than in Massechusetts.

Don't get me wrong, there are more old building in Europe, but colonial US is quite old, and there's more continuity than you might think. The real issue is that the US replaced more old stuff, being in growth mode, which was alright until cars came along and now most thing we build are absolutely terrible.

2 comments

It’s not uncommon to have city walls from the Middle Ages, and Roman buildings and monuments around here (not all of them still in use, true). Plus a whole bunch of castles and churches from the 11th century onwards.

Boston and Santa Fe are very nice, but it really feels quite a bit different.

Colonial architecture is still pretty recent in the grand scheme of things. Native construction is far older and some of it is still standing. Oraibi, Taos, and Acoma are all close to a millennia old and there are structures in the US going back another couple thousand years like las capas or poverty point. If you head south into Mexico, you can find structures even older than that. There's nothing like gobekli tepe, but that's okay.
Right that's true, but little of that stuff is part of the fabric of an intact, living city right? Either because it was raised by colonizers (e.g. Just a few things from technocratic remain, which are largely dug up rather than continuous, right?) or abandoned first (like Mayan cities).
That depends on what you mean by part of an intact, living city. Oraibi, Taos, and Acoma are all continuously inhabited places, so obviously they count. Las Capas is a continuously inhabited region with small periods of interruption in certain specific areas, just like any city in the UK.
Sorry, I completely forgot about the Pueblos. Good point.