Relocating and moving a whole town

G

Glowworm

Senior Member
Location
Sweden
The town of Kiruna in northern Sweden is moving. Yes the whole town is being relocated. Why? The iron ore mine owned by the company LKAB which is the largest iron ore mine in Europe is continuously expanding and is now undermining the town causing cracks in the ground and possible subsidence. The mine is the largest employer in this rural area and to close the mine would lead to the loss of 4 000 jobs with very little chance of finding alternative employment and enormous loss of income to the local community and state. So an agreement was reached in which the entire town will be relocated. New homes are being built and heritage buildings are being moved to the new location. The move is expected to be completed by the year 2035

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/sweden-kiruna-relocation/index.html
 

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I think that something similar happened a few years ago,
also in Sweden, but I can't remember the story, other than
because of mining it had to move.

Very enterprising really to not destroy history, not like the
mining company in Australia who destroyed an Aborigine
"Holy or Special" cave I think.

Mike.
 
I may be wrong, (wouldn't be the first time) but I think
there is an Alaskan town that is due to be, or under consideration for moving the whole place away from the Ocean
which is eroding it.....
 
Mike said:
I think that something similar happened a few years ago,
also in Sweden, but I can't remember the story, other than
because of mining it had to move.

Very enterprising really to not destroy history, not like the
mining company in Australia who destroyed an Aborigine
"Holy or Special" cave I think.

Mike.
Click to expand...
You're probably thinking about the same town Mike as this has been in the news for a while and I don't know of any other towns that are being relocated
 
Glowworm said:
You're probably thinking about the same town Mike as this has been in the news for a while and I don't know of any other towns that are being relocated
Click to expand...
I thought that it was a long time ago Glowworm,
15 - 20 years ago but maybe it was the start of the
planning of the move.

Mike.
 
Some towns here in Kansas were moved for construction of flood control reservoirs. Strawn, Kansas was one. https://newstrawn.org/history/ Another was Randolph, Kansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph,_Kansas Strawn became New Strawn as it was moved for John Redmond Reservoir. Randolph retained their name for the "new" town. Other towns that were evacuated to make room for Tuttle Creek Reservoir did not rebuild. Streets in the current town of Randolph are named for the towns that did not rebuild.

A few years ago, I was working close to John Redmond Reservoir. The area was going through a drought and parts of the old town area became visible. You could see a "pockmarked" area that was the old cemetery. Just a checkerboard of holes that had not silted in. There have been stories of the crews hired to move the cemeteries. The old wooden caskets had rotted away, leaving skeletal remains that had not yet decomposed.
 
All the accounts of towns being relocated for one reason or another are fascinating. However I guess that the most famous relocation is the temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt that was completely dismantled and moved stone by stone together with other monuments when the Aswan Dam on the river Nile was built in the 1960's
 
Glowworm said:
All the accounts of towns being relocated for one reason or another are fascinating. However I guess that the most famous relocation is the temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt that was completely dismantled and moved stone by stone together with other monuments when the Aswan Dam on the river Nile was built in the 1960's
Click to expand...
I remember that one Glowworm.

Mike.
 
There was an ancient Egyptian capital, Pi-Ramesses, in the delta region. It was a huge port and religious center. Over a few hundred years the branch of the Nile that it sat silted up, they couldn't get their boats to sail into the city. It was exactly what you think a centuries old Egyptian city would look like. 40 foot stone statues of Pharaohs, massive temple after huge temple., etc. They decided it was cheaper to move the city than build a brand new one. So they moved to a deeper branch of the Nile about 20 miles away. They dragged every stone to the new site., Tanis. The only thing they left in Pi-Ramesses, was the stone foundations. That was thousands and thousands of years ago, not much has changed, HUH?
 

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