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Comment by jkhdigital | Hacker News Reader

Yes, one has to be astonishingly ignorant of history to think that cloistering a society’s leaders in an ivory tower will result in long term stability and prosperity.

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The list of purpose built national capitals is actually pretty interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_purpose-built_national...

Constantinople lasted over 1100 years.... and Washington seems to be the capital of a reasonably prosperous and stable country?

Interesting list

Both the Canadian and American cases are not a relocation that made it too far from the original place

Byzantium was a city for centuries before Constantine was born, and a fine place to control the grain trade from the Black Sea.

There was a city there but it wasn't that large and was dramatically redeveloped after it became the new capital:

https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/making-constantinople/

Not to mention being closer to the Silk Road trade routes through Asia.

Constantinople was a major port way before Byzantine times. Calling it a purpose built capital is a joke. It was a purpose-assigned capital though.

Ottawa, Canada wasn't purpose-built but was an insignificant city meant to be a neutral choice of capital between Anglo and Francophone Canada. This has also worked fine.

This ivory tower has a lot of well planned security features.

As long as they're not inconveniences that make people think, "why would I want to put up with that every day‽"

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