In a GQ thread:
Which reminded me of the St Lewis central business district: once home to the Olympics, the biggest passenger rail hub I’ve ever seen, major river port, and now rather empty looking.
What European cities would you go to and notice that they had been depopulated and were in reduced circumstances?
Vienna comes to mind. Bonn is probably less important than it used to be. Calais is probably not as important as it was historically. Bruges and Antwerp are probably less than they were. Cordoba certainly is not at its peak. Rome is still an important city, but it was once the most important city in the Western World and it is not now. Sparta is probably the poster child for diminished glory since it now has an OK population, but was basically down to a thousand people or so after the 13th century. Florence does not wield the influence that it did at its height. Naples is another as is Venice. Konigsberg/Kaliningrad once was extremely important and I would bet that many people couldn’t even find it on a map. Regensburg is hardly thought of anymore. I don’t know, I’m sure there are others, but that’s the top of my head.
Until the end of WWII, Lviv (Ukraine) was a proud Polish city, and according to my Polish friends it was a cultural, academic and political hub, in many ways grander, more wealthy and more important than Krakow. (which is now the undisputed tourist mecca of Poland, as well as this very historically minded nation’s “Spiritual Capital”)
Today Lviv is largely forgotten, and stands grey, drab and dirty, although lightly dusted with an unmistakable coat of Faded Glory (though still worth a visit in my opinion) and is a city that I would bet less than 1 in 100 Americans has ever even heard of.
What about Toledo, Spain?
It’s a fairly small city now, but didn’t it used to be the seat of the Spanish Empire?
I have heard of it! My maternal grandfather was born there and lived there until his family emigrated to the US when he was a year old, in the early 19-oughts. I hope to visit there someday myself.
In Europe, regarding this question, I can think maybe the capitol of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, would be in this category. Once the hub of a decent size nation, now the primary city in a smaller state. In that same vein, Sarajevo, which once hosted the winter Olympics, has not been in the news much as of late, except as click-bait for diminished Olympic venues.
Presumably Amsterdam had a lot more significance when the Dutch had an empire.
Liverpool is a wonderful place to visit, but it’s no longer the incredibly important port it used to be.
On the global political stage, yeah. But Amsterdam is very much not “depopulated and in reduced circumstances”.
A lot of the British cities that bloomed due to industrial and trade development have taken a few knocks. dalej42 mentions Liverpool, but there’s also Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle and quite a few others. Many of them are at various stages of successfully re-inventing themselves, but some are still struggling.
Actually, I’d say the ones you listed there are pretty booming these days.
Ha, yes. I should have listed a Middlesbrough or two.
I’m British, not American; but I’ve heard of Lviv – have long been fascinated by Central and Eastern Europe and their history.
About a year ago, had things gone otherwise I might have visited Lviv. Myself and a friend took a holiday, by car, in central and eastern parts of the continent; at one stage, needed to get from the far north of Romania, to Poland. We were looking at one point, at accomplishing this by travelling through the Ukraine via Lviv. Ultimately chose, instead, to go via Hungary and Slovakia: shorter route, plus we’d found ourselves regarding the Ukraine as potentially – not necessarily in a bad way — a bit “here be dragons” scary.
I don’t know that there are really parallels to be had though, unless you go back a LONG way.
The reason so many of the US cities used to be important, but are no longer is more historical and geographical, mostly due to the westward expansion of the country. New Orleans was a big deal when it was the ONLY major port west of the Appalachians and prior to the railroads.
There hasn’t really been much of that sort of thing in Europe in the last couple thousand years. The only ones I can think of are where one state is combined into another, and the capitol cities decline in importance (Bonn, Florence), where there was once a large empire/country that fractured and the imperial capitol declined after that (Austria, Belgrade), or where large-scale economic changes lessened the importance of cities engaged in specific industries (Bruges, Sheffield)
A lot of Italian cities, some were mentioned, comes to mind: Venice (although it has reinvented its importance as a tourist trap), Trieste, Genoa, Siena …
No, it was the Spanish capital of the German emperor. But it wasn’t any bigger than it’s now.
Speaking as someone who has never set foot in Venice but who is flying there next week, one person’s “Tourist Trap” is someone else’s favorite city in the world, a place that evokes the happiest memories of their life.
With that said, the only reason I am going to Venice is to see my sister for the first time in a couple of years, who is going to fly there from the US with a few friends and I am going to introduce her to my fiancee for the first time, and as the R/T flights were under $20 each from Krakow, it seemed like a reasonable idea, but the minute she leaves, I am taking my sweet Ania to Parma for the rest of our time in Italy, which promises to be much more intimate, affordable and relaxing, as well as far less touristed.
Finally on the subject of Venice, this summer I was having a piwo in one of my local pubs here in Krakow, talking to a lovely young bartender friend of mine (as my Polish is after 3 years here still sadly on the level of a brain-damaged, selectively mute, blackout drunk 4 year-old child we were speaking in English) and a British guy sitting down the bar started chatting with me, telling me he was on a quick trip around Europe with a buddy of his who had just broken up with his girlfriend.
He tells me that they had just arrived in Krakow from Venice, and I ask him how he liked it, and he said it was a beautiful city, but extremely crowded, touristy and brutally, unbelievably expensive. I asked him to elaborate a bit, and he told me a story about how he and his friend were wiped out after a long, hot day of sightseeing and decided to sit down at an outdoor cafe directly in the heart of the action, maybe somewhere right off of the Rialto Bridge. He said they knew it would be expensive, in the most touristy area of a touristy city, but they were tired and just wanted to sit down, have one drink and cool off and watch the world pass by for a few minutes. He said he told the waiter that he only wanted a beer, his pal a whiskey & Coke, they weren’t hungry, no need for a menu, so they sat for a bit, finished off their drinks and asked for the bill.
The tab was 70 Euro ($80.00 U$D) and so he was sure there had been some mistake, their check mixed up with somebody else’s, but the waiter cheerfully told him, “No, no, that’s right, one beer and one Whiskey & Coke, 70 Euro please, just like it says. Will that be cash or card?”
I didn’t tell him what my response to the situation would have been, but when I mentioned to him that the excellent Polish lager that he was drinking would cost him about 1 GB Pound, he looked a bit startled, then slightly incredulous, then finally looking resigned to his fate he sort of nodded to himself solemnly, drained his glass and ordered another beer…
Got it, thanks!