Chapter 143: Rectifying the Slums (Two-in-One Chapter)

By the end of November 1872, a new problem appeared before the Spanish government.

Currently, development and construction across Spain are proceeding quite smoothly; the development of Madrid and Barcelona is particularly outstanding, and they are known as the twin stars among Spain's many cities.

Of course, the primary reason for this is that Spain's total population is simply too small; the entire country does not even have a single city with a population exceeding one million.

Among the major powers at present, the British capital of London is the most populous city, with a population approaching four million.

Such a population scale is extremely exaggerated, not much different from small countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. However, Britain's actual population does not compare to those of Germany, France, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which shows just how exaggerated London's industrial and economic development is as the core city of the First Industrial Revolution.

Although the reputation of the "Foggy City" is not pleasant, London at this time is indeed the most brilliant city in the world and a truly international metropolis in the sense of this era.

Compared to London, the starlight of Paris is somewhat dimmer. According to current data, Paris's population is around two million, slightly more than half of London's.

However, compared to the capitals of other major powers, Paris's population still ranks among the top. Berlin and Vienna, which follow, only have populations on the scale of one million, and they are inferior in both scale and economic volume.

The United States is a rather special country; its capital is not its most developed city. The most developed city in the United States is New York, but the capital is in Washington.

Currently, New York's population is also approaching one million, and it will experience a population explosion alongside the rapid development of the United States.

New York currently cannot compare to London and Paris, but in a few decades, New York will have developed into an international metropolis second only to London, easily surpassing many European cities with much longer histories.

Currently, Madrid's population has just barely exceeded 400, 00; it is considered a large city in Spain, but looking at Europe as a whole, it can only be considered a relatively large city.

Barcelona, the other city acting as a twin star, also has a population of over 360, 00 at this time. Apart from the two twin stars of Madrid and Barcelona, other Spanish cities are smaller in scale; even Seville, which possesses a small industrial base, has a population of just over 100, 00.

From this, one can see why the new industrial base was chosen to be located in Barcelona. Because apart from the capital Madrid, only Barcelona has a population capable of supporting the construction of a medium-sized industrial base.

The industrial base currently under construction in Barcelona will provide at least 50, 00 jobs; if it were not for Barcelona's population of nearly 400, 00, I fear these 50, 00 jobs could not even be filled.

In fact, Barcelona's current population is far from enough. With the construction of the industrial city, it will certainly absorb more people from the surrounding countryside and small towns.

Large cities like Madrid and Barcelona will have more and more people in the future, while the populations of those small cities will not experience much growth and may even remain in a state of negative growth.

This phenomenon is inevitable and occurs frequently, both now and in the future.

The rise of a super-large city represents the decline of several small and medium-sized cities. Once Barcelona's industrial base is completed, it will certainly absorb the population of the villages and small towns surrounding Barcelona.

It can be expected that Barcelona's population will enter a period of rapid growth within the next ten years. However, the population of the towns surrounding Barcelona will not necessarily see growth and may even face a situation of decline.

But this is also an unavoidable problem in urban development. For the sake of the development of Madrid and Barcelona, it is necessary to appropriately sacrifice some small cities.

Because only such large cities can support the construction of industrial bases, and the construction of large industrial bases can improve Spain's industrial scale and environment.

Returning the perspective to Madrid. As Spain's largest city at present, Madrid's population has exceeded 400, 00, making it the brilliant pearl of the Iberian Peninsula.

But this does not mean that Madrid is an extremely prosperous city. Apart from a few bustling streets in the city center, there are not many high-rise buildings in Madrid, and there are even many slums.

The Spanish government during the period of Queen Isabel only valued the construction of bustling streets and did not care at all about the slums where the lower-class civilians lived.

This has given Madrid, which was originally a single entity, two scenes. The streets in the city center are extremely prosperous, and the flow of people does not seem to lose out to other major European cities.

But outside the city center, in the outskirts, a large number of slums can be seen everywhere, and there are even many dirty, messy, and dangerous buildings.

This not only severely damages Madrid's urban image but also increases the possibility of disease transmission. The sanitary conditions in these slums are extremely poor, and some people even openly defecate in public places.

Precisely because the sanitary conditions here are extremely poor, the dignitaries and nobles are unwilling to go to the slums, and this place has become a paradise for criminals with very poor public security.

Since we are talking about development, the development of Madrid is particularly important.

After all, as the capital and current largest city of Spain, Madrid is one of Spain's calling cards to the outside world and also a propaganda tool for attracting immigrants.

If Madrid were to become famous for a dirty and messy image, it would also be a blow to Spain's own immigration work.

Barcelona is still the territory of the Catalans for the time being, so it is not appropriate for the government to carry out large-scale rectification. The city most suitable for rectification at present is Madrid; if it succeeds, it can be promoted nationwide, and if it fails, it will not have too much of an impact.

On November 30, 1872, a member of parliament submitted a bill to the parliament regarding the rectification of order in the urban area of Madrid, which sparked a heated discussion in the entire Spanish parliament.

The reason for the heated discussion is the scope of the rectification; the vast majority of the areas on the outskirts of Madrid are included, containing a large number of slums and lower-class Spanish citizens, at least over one hundred thousand people.

Launching a rectification of these slums also means providing new living quarters for these hundred thousand-plus people, otherwise, it will certainly cause chaos.

This is no small expense, and it also requires re-planning the urban area of Madrid and building locations for these slum residents to relocate to, which ideally should not be too far from where they work.

The benefits of doing this are many. Not only can it re-plan the urban area of Madrid, allowing Madrid to accommodate as many people as possible while maintaining its current urban scale, but it can also become cleaner and tidier, looking more like a modern metropolis.

But the disadvantages are also many. First of all, re-planning the city and providing sufficient living quarters for the slum residents requires significant investment.

On this basis, whether all the residents within the scope of the rectification are willing to move, and whether there are enough construction teams to build more buildings in a short period of time for these residents to live in, are also questions worth considering.

Precisely because of the great interests involved, this proposal was voted on in parliament for several days, sparking widespread discussion among members of parliament, but no clear result was reached.

The topic hotly debated in parliament also attracted the attention of Prime Minister Primo and Gao Da. Regardless of Prime Minister Primo's attitude, for Gao Da, rectifying Spain's slums is very necessary.

The housing environment in the slums is very poor, and the sanitary conditions are also extremely bad. This not only damages Madrid's urban image but also affects the health of the slum residents.

Rectifying the slums is an additional expense for the government, but apart from spending money, there are no bad effects. If the number of slums in Spain can be effectively improved, and the slum residents can all have houses built of reinforced concrete to live in, it could instead win the support of these people.

But houses must absolutely not be given away for free; this is unfair to those who are not within the scope of the rectification, and for those who receive houses for free, they will not necessarily be grateful to the government and the royal family.

There is a saying that what is easily obtained is often not cherished. If the government distributes houses to slum residents for free, they will certainly be grateful to the government and the royal family in the short term, but it is not certain after a long time.

Compared to distributing houses for free, Gao Da actually has a better plan, which is the low-rent housing of later generations.

So-called low-rent housing is actually cheap housing built by the government to provide for the impoverished population. The rent for these houses is generally very low, ensuring that those impoverished people can also afford to rent them.

Because they are houses specifically provided for the impoverished, these houses do not need to be built too exquisitely. The area and space of the housing can be reduced in exchange for lower rent.

Thinking of the low-rent housing policy of later generations, Gao Da also decided not to hesitate and pushed for Spain to also build houses similar to low-rent housing to guarantee the housing needs of the slum population.

However, such a proposal certainly cannot be put forward by Gao Da himself. After all, low-rent housing also requires rent, and the slums will be rectified, so there will certainly be people who are unwilling to change their existing lives.

Fortunately, after arriving in Spain for a few years, the number of people Gao Da can use is constantly increasing. Currently, most of the seats in the Spanish parliament are controlled by Prime Minister Primo, but there are still many seats that do not belong to the Progressive Party where Prime Minister Primo is located.

The Spanish Conservative Party mentioned earlier also holds parliamentary seats; their philosophy is more inclined toward the Royalist Party, so naturally, some will choose to defect to Gao Da.

He Sai is such a candidate. The Conservative Party to which he belongs supports the monarchy more, but there is not much opposition to Prime Minister Primo's reforms.

The Conservative Party does not oppose reform; this seems strange, but in reality, it is quite normal to think about it. Because the truly conservative and pedantic members of the Conservative Party were eliminated during the revolution, the remaining Conservative Party members now support conservatism more in terms of the monarchy, rather than conservatism in terms of reform.

Those pedantic Conservative Party members disappeared into Spanish history along with the Bourbon dynasty; as long as Prime Minister Primo's reforms do not experience complete failure, or Gao Da's reign does not experience several relatively failed wars, it is basically impossible for the Bourbon dynasty to be restored.

The pain that Queen Isabel and her father brought to the Spanish people is too deep, and this is not something that can be made up for in a few decades.

The reason why the Bourbon dynasty was restored in history was that Amadeo, who was selected as king, failed to promote reforms in Spain, and the Republican Party that overthrew the monarchy performed even worse than the monarchy, which finally allowed the Bourbon dynasty to be restored.

If the performance of Amadeo or the Republican Party had not been so poor, the history of Spain would have been completely rewritten.

On December 2, 1872, He Sai resubmitted a proposal to the Spanish parliament, which included building a large number of low-rent houses in Madrid and saving part of the expenses by collecting rent, trying to rectify Madrid's slums at a lower cost.

In addition, the proposal also included encouraging residents of civilian areas to go to factories in the suburbs of Madrid to work, effectively increasing the actual income of slum residents, and other means to reduce the impact of rectifying the slums.

Although the new industrial zone is being built in Barcelona, Madrid itself also has industrial zones. It is just that Madrid's industry is more scattered, with factories everywhere in the suburbs, and the overall industrial scale is even higher than that of Barcelona.

If these factories in the suburbs of Madrid can be effectively utilized to provide more jobs for slum residents, it could also change the opinions of slum residents and make them more supportive of the policy of rectifying the slums.

Overall, providing housing for the hundred thousand-plus Spaniards living in slums requires a large budget, but this budget is not as large as imagined.

After all, housing prices in this era are not that expensive, and Madrid is only a small city with a population of just over 400, 00.

With sufficient land and building materials, and building very simple buildings like low-rent housing, the overall cost of each building is very cheap.

Considering the actual needs of these residents, the housing area needed for a family of four is about 50 square meters. Spain does not have any shared area, and although 50 square meters is not large, it is indeed enough for the daily life of a family of four.

As for toilets and the like, 1 to 2 public toilets can be built on each floor to solve the sanitary needs of the residents. In addition, a certain number of large public toilets can be built in each area to effectively improve the sanitary environment of public areas.

According to such requirements, the cost of building the buildings is much lower. For the Spanish government, this is not an unaffordable budget.

After all, the 500 million franc loan promised by the French is also about to arrive one by one, and with the help of this loan, the budget for rectifying Madrid's slums is only a small part of it.

After He Sai submitted the proposal to the parliament, Prime Minister Primo already understood who was behind it.

For Prime Minister Primo, he is very clear about who these Conservative Party members have defected to. Since the young King is interested in promoting the rectification of Madrid's slums, Prime Minister Primo is naturally happy to do so.

After all, this is part of the reform, it is just happening earlier. Since the King has taken the initiative to support such a plan, he naturally cannot oppose it.

With the signal from Prime Minister Primo, the members of the Progressive Party expressed their support for this proposal. And the members of the Conservative Party, under the persuasion of He Sai, also cast their votes in favor.

Under the promotion of the two major parties, the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party, this proposal was quickly passed in parliament, and the other opposing parties and members were ultimately just a minority.

Although the proposal to rectify the slums was passed, how to do it specifically still needs to be properly discussed.

For the government, rectifying Madrid is a must, but it cannot be done all at once. The rectification of all slums must be prioritized; priority should be given to rectifying those dangerous building areas, followed by those dirty and messy areas, and finally those areas that are only relatively dirty and messy.

After such an allocation, the slums that need to be rectified first are actually not many, and the residents living inside are only a few tens of thousands.

However, the overall construction volume is still very large, and it is difficult for domestic construction teams in Spain to complete it in a short period of time. The rectification of the slums must be completed quickly; to achieve this goal, the Spanish government decided to open a public tender to find foreign construction companies to help Spain build more low-rent houses faster.

There is nothing much to say about the construction of low-rent housing. The requirements for such houses are very low, as long as they are strong enough and can be lived in.

Compared to the houses in the slums, sturdy buildings built of reinforced concrete are already warmer, more spacious, and brighter places.

What the government needs to study is not how to build low-rent housing, but how to distribute it to slum residents after the low-rent housing is built.

Still the same sentence, free distribution is impossible, and Prime Minister Primo's attitude is the same. Like the previous land, it is still adopted in the form of renting out.

However, considering that those who really need these low-rent houses are all very low-income people, the rent for these low-rent houses must not be high.

Referring to the current per capita income in Spain, the government finally determined the rent for low-rent housing to be 2 cents per square meter per month.

Generally, a family of four needs a living area of about 50 square meters, and the monthly rent is 100 cents, which is 1 Peseta. The annual rent is only 12 Pesetas, which is about one-tenth of the current per capita annual income.

Such rent is definitely affordable for the vast majority of families. Taking later generations as an example, assuming the per capita income is 4, 00 yuan per month, the annual income is 48, 00 yuan. The rent for a 50-square-meter low-rent house is 400 yuan per month, and the rent is not too high.

Of course, considering that there are indeed a small number of extremely impoverished families, such rent is not completely fixed. If there are families who lack labor and whose income is far lower than the per capita income, the government can reduce or exempt the rent of low-rent housing for the first three years, or provide certain rental subsidies for such families to ensure that these low-income people have houses to live in.

In addition, the environment of these low-rent houses cannot be too good, and each individual house will not be equipped with a toilet. This is not because the Spanish government is unwilling to provide a better living environment for low-income people, but really to prevent higher-income people from grabbing the housing resources of low-income people.

Most of those who need low-rent housing are low-income people; if the living environment of low-rent housing is built too well, it will certainly attract the attention of some non-low-income people.

Low-rent housing is originally built by the government at a loss, so naturally, the less built, the better. If these middle and high-income people come to grab the low-rent housing resources, either many real low-income people will not get houses, or the government will be forced to build more houses, causing more middle and high-income people to compete, forming a vicious circle.

5, 00-word two-in-one chapter, asking for support!

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(End of chapter)