
When London’s Dragons Ruled Before Skyscrapers - dangerman
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/12/27/dragon-boundary-markers
======
saaaaaam
This is a very strangely written article, like something churned out by an SEO
mill.

It half-way alludes to - and then shies away from - a bunch of potentially
interesting things, then wildly changes direction in the last paragraph and
ends abruptly. I wonder if the person who wrote it has ever even visited
London? Most of it seems to be a near-direct lift form the Wikipedia article
on the City of London.

~~~
runarb
I also thought so. No pictures and it was not clear from the article if thus
sculptures were still standing.

A quick search turned up an article with pictures:
[https://www.aperturetours.com/blog/dragons](https://www.aperturetours.com/blog/dragons)

------
ucaetano
> The American Conservative

> We want a federal government that restrains itself from intrusive forays
> into the lives and businesses

> Unfortunately, these well-intentioned dragons at the thresholds of the City
> of London have been unable to guard against the onslaught of hubristic
> architects and developers

Wow, that's hard to conciliate! A limited-government conservative who is also
a NIMBY and in favor a strong-government urban planning.

~~~
jdpedrie
There is no contradiction in wanting a small federal government and being in
favor of local governments making rules to better the daily life of citizens,
or accomplish any other goal. It’s well in line with the concept of
subsidiarity, a hallmark of most strands of conservatism.

~~~
ucaetano
Not when you want this:

> authentically free markets

Heavily regulating land markets is as far away from a free market as you can
be.

~~~
tom_
It's not quite the same, but Georgists consider land, in general, and not
entirely without reason, as a special case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism)

------
rebuilder
Are boundary markers really completely deprecated in much of the world? Here
in Finland, private properties still commonly feature them, and it's illegal
to move them.

~~~
hermitdev
Not sure. I know one corner of my parent's land in Montana has a physical
marker. Maybe because it's a joint boundary between state, federal and private
land. It is also really hard to find, as it's in the bottom of a ravine in
heavy brush and it's a ground level bronze (I think) spike like an oversized
nail hammered into the ground. You really have to know where the boundary is
within a few feet already to have even the slightest hope of finding it.

I found it once as a teen, but 2 decades later, I'd be hard pressed to find
it.

~~~
ucaetano
That might also be a USGS reference marker, used for topographic surveys.

~~~
dmckeon
Did it look like one of these?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_marker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_marker)

------
chmarr
URL for the original article source:
[https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/12/27/dragon-
boundary-...](https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/12/27/dragon-boundary-
markers)

~~~
dang
Thanks! Changed to that from
[https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/when-londons-
dr...](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/when-londons-dragons-
ruled-before-skyscrapers/).

------
dangus
This is really one of the worst articles I've ever read, ever.

Not only because it baits you with an interesting introduction suggesting that
we'll get a really neat history lesson, but because it ends abruptly with
wildly irrelevant, unsubstantiated opinions.

Why are big glass towers bad? Who have they harmed? Why is new development
bad? Is there any evidence to show that these buildings are not as energy
efficient as they claim to be? Which landmarks have been destroyed? In what
way are buildings designed to make money bad? None of these questions are
answered and we're expected to assume that the author's opinion comes from
some position of authority.

It truly is conservative in the most primal sense: I don't want things to
change, I don't know why, and I'm upset about it.

~~~
marcoperaza
I can’t prove to you that Venice is more beautiful than Manhattan.

