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.
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.
Maybe 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.
Nor 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.
Just 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
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.
Well, 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.
Don't forget that things aren't the same everywhere. The land in Alaska and New York is rising pretty fast, geologically speaking, since the weight of glaciers came off. Meanwhile New Orleans is sinking. Chicago took matters into their own hands and raised street level an entire floor to combat flooding. We still have ancient caves at ground level in New York, but I'm sure stuff buried under a city survives better.
"raised street level an entire floor to combat flooding" - yup, that's pretty much the same technique by which "the ancient cities are rising." Except that Chicago was lifted up, whereas the old cities were only readjusted - essentially, ground level becomes the first basement, entrance is now on what used to be second floor. This process could be repeated, giving rise to old ground-level floors becoming the third basement or similar. Case in point: Prague's Old Town, founded at riverside, was gradually raised by up to 30 feet (which has unexpected consequences, and actually worsens the flooding problems it was always expected to solve).
> Are ancient cities actually getting higher in altitude as old ruins get covered up?
I recently watched a TV show from a relatively old series about underground cities where they showed the underground of Istanbul. Very interesting, but I can't remember the name of the show.
"The course of the old racetrack has been indicated with paving, although the actual track is some 2 m (6.6 ft) below the present surface. The surviving monuments of the Spina (the middle barrier of the racecourse), the two obelisks and the Serpentine Column, now sit in holes in a landscaped garden."
That 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...
That happened quite recently in London for the new CrossRail track: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23609994. Not that I agree that the city is too old, or that this is a major problem; from the sounds of it, the CrossRail planners were well aware they'd run into interesting archeological finds, so allotted resources to deal with it.
To 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.
And 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.
The first underground lines were in 1863. That's the mid 19th century. The first deep level train (what's actually the Tube) was the City & South London Railway, opened in 1890 (late 19th century). Check yo fax.
> opened in 1890 (late 19th century). Check yo fax.
HN, of all communities, should be familiar with off-by-one errors. My apologies for the confusion; you are right, I was referring to the late 19th and early 20th century.
Nope - 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).
There 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.
Roughly 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.
London 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.
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.