eli5: Why were some ancient cities like Palmyra and Machu Picchu left to ruin and fall apart over hundreds of years instead of being repopulated?
In: 1677
There are a lot of good answers here about how cities are high maintenance and can’t survive unless they are constantly maintained, but let’s look at the bigger picture. Let’s say you’ve got a city that was abandoned by a civilization as it collapsed. A hundred years go by. A new civilization has taken over and they have the resources to reoccupy the city. That’s a whole bunch of paved roads and perfectly usable buildings just sitting there. Why would they choose not to reoccupy it?
That comes down to why the city was important in the first place, and whether it’s still relevant once it can be reoccupied. If a city is built around a finite natural resource, such as an oasis, and that oasis dries up, that’s pretty much the end of that city forever. If it was built along a river and the course of the river changes, same thing. And it’s not just geological factors: trade routes can change, bypassing cities that used to be trading hubs, or advances in technology can render a city obsolete by making its primary industries useless.
So basically, there are two things that have to happen for a city to be reoccupied: the current civilization in that area needs to be able to reoccupy and it needs to have a good reason to do so. The city’s location needs to be worth the effort of rebuilding.
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