You can't destroy the city.

[Requia ☣]

So in History class they told me about the third Punic War.  Where the Romans burned all of Carthage to the ground, then took everybody who survived as slaves.

Today I was browsing Wikipedia, and apparently there's still a city there.  What exactly does it take to get rid of this thing?  Hell, in WWII we burned Dresden to ground, nuked two Japanese cities, and Hitler did his damnedest to get rid of London, a=but all those are still there today.  It can be *done* there are a few ruins of cities that somehow died, I know the Mayans lost a few cities, though exactly why seems to be a bit fuzzy.  Jericho is a ruin too, but that supposedly took divine intervention. and God doesn't return my emails.

So how exactly do we get rid of it, if burning it down doesn't actually work?

[BabylonHoruv]

The Romans not only burned Carthage they actually salted the ground around it so it would not be able to support crops.  Hard core effort at killing that city and it did not die.

[Requia ☣]

Not actually true.  That was made up in the 19th century, there's no mention of it before then.

[BabylonHoruv]

Not actually true.  That was made up in the 19th century, there's no mention of it before then.

Fuckers from the 1800's deceiving me with their slanderous lies.

Does that mean that perhaps salting the earth could kill a city?  We've got nastier things to salt it with than rocksalt now after all.

[Requia ☣]

Maybe.  They salt the streets a lot of places though, doesn't seem to stop people from living in them.

[Nast]

Maybe.  They salt the streets a lot of places though, doesn't seem to stop people from living in them.

I suppose because nowadays, most food isn't grown within large urban centers.

[Jasper]

Lead plumbing, state mandated religion, and private fire departments.

ETA:  Oh, and good timing.

[Nast]

Lead plumbing, state mandated religion, and private fire departments.

ETA:  Oh, and good timing.

I hate to be the one to ruin the fun, but even lead plumbing doesn't do the trick if it builds up a protective layer of minerals. That's why the ancient Romans didn't all get poisoned; there was a lot of calcium in the water that accumulated and acted as a barrier between their water and their plumbing.

Or so I hear.

[Jasper]

Okay.

Mercury pollution, state mandated religion, and private fire departments.

ETA:  Oh, and good timing.

Fixed.

I love how there is a thread to discuss how to survive societal collapse, and another thread gets jacked so we can discuss how to make it happen.

/Threadjack

[Nast]

Okay.

Mercury pollution, state mandated religion, and private fire departments.

ETA:  Oh, and good timing.

Fixed.

I love how there is a thread to discuss how to survive societal collapse, and another thread gets jacked so we can discuss how to make it happen.

/Threadjack

I wouldn't think it's a threadjack. All these ideas do answer the OP's question, after all.

Ooh, and mercury poisoning's a good one because it causes long lasting crippling effects, and can even be congenital. See Minamata and Niigata, etc.

[Jasper]

That's where I got the idea.

History is an abbatoir.

[Payne]

So in History class they told me about the third Punic War.  Where the Romans burned all of Carthage to the ground, then took everybody who survived as slaves.

Today I was browsing Wikipedia, and apparently there's still a city there.  What exactly does it take to get rid of this thing?  Hell, in WWII we burned Dresden to ground, nuked two Japanese cities, and Hitler did his damnedest to get rid of London, a=but all those are still there today.  It can be *done* there are a few ruins of cities that somehow died, I know the Mayans lost a few cities, though exactly why seems to be a bit fuzzy.  Jericho is a ruin too, but that supposedly took divine intervention. and God doesn't return my emails.

So how exactly do we get rid of it, if burning it down doesn't actually work?

They tend not to just disapear because cities are built in good places to build cities. (Except Tucson, and anywhere in Canada).

Assuming the civilization has enough resources and political will, they will rebuild it no matter how slowly because, well, it was a good place to build a city.

[Triple Zero]

Maybe.  They salt the streets a lot of places though, doesn't seem to stop people from living in them.

I suppose because nowadays, most food isn't grown within large urban centers.

really wonder about that, how it'll affect the trees and other greens in coming spring. they salted the fuck out of our streets when we had that snow in the past few weeks.

[Aufenthatt]

Having been to Carthage I can easily explain why it is still there.
The only four ancient things I found were:

A burial ground for children (Cartheraginian)
A bath house (Roman)
A port (everyone)
Dinosaurs in a museum (stolen from all over Tunisa)

So the Romans burnt it to the ground, then rebuilt it, which was disapointing because they don't seem to have thought that far ahead with Greece.
London rebuilt itself, and uses massive fires as a method of pest control anyway. In Germany Dresden and Hamburg were destroyed totally. People built new stuff and kept calling the area the same name, but they are both new cities.  

So basicly the way to destroy a city is kill everyone who knows its name, expecially people with building skills.

[Suu]

Where Troy is supposed to be, they found like 9 different cities built on top of one another with the last one actually being the Roman settlement of Ilium. The level in which is considered Homeric Troy, "Troy VII", nothing is left but fragments of walls. Sparta didn't fuck around.