Morten St George Theory

[davidjackson]

For example, I just learned that my home city used to have a magnificent medieval city gate close to where I used to live. It's been destroyed as recently as c. 1900 because they wanted to build a road there.

The Spanish city of Almería has the largest Moorish fortress in Europe, even larger than the Alhambra, and the heart was built in 955.
It wasn't properly protected by government decree until 1985; up until 1965 the exterior city walls were still being quarried for building materials. And just two years ago the (unqualified but a cousin-of-a-politician) director of the site allowed contractors to drill into a thousand-year wall to put up a temporary stage for a music festival. Fortunately, after a major outcry, she got fired.