I can appreciate that some villages were built in an area we now understand was too low. And some places like New Orleans were built on areas that have sunk because of lack of flooding. Maybe they were OK back in the day, but now ... not.
I've seen beach cottages built in the wrong place and the island basically shifts south leaving them in the water.
Cincinnati had some bad floods, the city sprung up on a flat spot between hills and a river, what now is called the Mill Creek Valley, the Mill Creek also floods, still. There is even one dam on it, making a nice lake, for us anyway. When the Ohio floods, the Mill Creek is dammed near the river and then pumped over said dam. They won't be moving Cincy, or NO, any time soon.