# Cities brought back from the dead. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 24, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789 "2009-11-24T16:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/1 "2009-11-24T16:48:16Z")
Why yes, it is inspired by the thread about cities disappearing. How many examples are there of cities which (for whatever reason) disappeared or ceased to be a population center then after an intervel recovered? Athens; was a little villiage in the 1800 when it was chosen to be the capital of Greece. Think its population is 4 million now. The various cities that existed in Gandhara, NW S Asia were finished by 1000 AD, until the 1960’s when Islamabad came into being. \*Not counting New World European settlements which were built on recently destroyed Native cities, there should have been a period where the city no longer existed, (say more then 50-100 years). ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/2 "2009-11-24T17:04:32Z")
Phoenix, Arizona was a Hohokam village for about 1000 years before being abandoned between 1350 and 1400. Then in 1868, the city itself was founded, taking advantage of what was left of the Hohokam irrigation canals. It’s now the 5th largest city in the US. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/3 "2009-11-24T18:36:15Z")
How big was the village? The two periods of greatness for Babylon were about 1500 years apart, though I am not sure that the city itself finished, though it certainly declined. Alexandria became a fishing villiage again at one time. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/4 "2009-11-24T18:49:34Z")
Wasn’t London essentially abandoned for some time between the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons? Wiki tells me that the Roman city (which is now central London?) was pretty much uninhabited between about the beginning of the sixth century and the middle of the ninth century, though there was another Anglo-Saxon settlement a mile to the west during that period. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/5 "2009-11-24T18:58:10Z")
[Jerusalem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem) might qualify. By the time of the Crusades its population was around 30,000; now it’s three quarters of a million. [Pnomh Penh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnomh_Penh), IIRC, was down to a few dozen inhabitants at one time, and is now well over a million. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/6 "2009-11-25T01:22:00Z")
Panama City is an odd case. It was destroyed, re-established in a different location, and later expanded again to incorporate its original location. The original city of Panama was established in 1519, then burned to the ground during the attack of the pirate Henry Morgan in 1671. Two years later, the city was re-established about 10 km to the west in a more defensible site. The original site was only sparsely inhabited for the next 300 years. About the 1960s the city expanded enough so that Old Panama became an urban area once again. Panama City was at one time the most important colonial city in the Americas. It became a backwater between about 1732, when continual attacks by pirates and the English caused Spanish ships to start going around Cape Horn to avoid them, and the 1850s, when the Panama Railroad was completed. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/7 "2009-11-25T02:47:37Z")
[Schaumburg, Illinois](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schaumburg,_Illinois), was a prosperous German settlement in the 1850s, but 100 years later had dwindled down to 130 souls. Then in 1955 O’Hare and the Interstate were planned through there, setting off a growth boom. Today Schaumburg, itself over 75,000 population, is part of uninterrupted megalopolis Chicagoland. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/8 "2009-11-25T02:54:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Phoenix, Arizona was a Hohokam village for about 1000 years before being abandoned between 1350 and 1400. Then in 1868, the city itself was founded, taking advantage of what was left of the Hohokam irrigation canals. It’s now the 5th largest city in the US. Ah, so that’s where it gets its name-- It’s a city risen from the ashes of a previous city. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/9 "2009-11-25T14:07:14Z")
Rome, after the fall? How much of the city survived during the Dark Ages? I know the papacy (or at least _a_ papacy) was there, but was there much of a city around it? ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/10 "2009-11-25T14:13:37Z")
Shanghai was a dippy fishing village. well, village by Chinese standards, until the late 1800’s. Population is now edging up on 20 million. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/11 "2009-11-25T14:17:32Z")
Warsaw was essentially depopulated by the end of WW2, but was re-settled pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-brought-back-from-the-dead/518789/12 "2009-11-25T14:20:37Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Shanghai was a dippy fishing village. well, village by Chinese standards, until the late 1800’s. Population is now edging up on 20 million. Was it a major city at a time before the 18th Century?