Chapter 317

Carlos's itinerary in Barcelona was very simple: first, go to the Barcelona municipal government to inspect the work related to the formation of the special municipality. Then, go to the Barcelona industrial base to inspect the construction situation of the industrial base.

Speaking of which, the Barcelona industrial base had been built for several years now, and the number of times Carlos had come here could be counted on one hand.

It was not that Carlos did not care about the development of the Barcelona industrial base, but mainly because the situation in Catalonia had been relatively chaotic in the past few years, and coupled with the fact that Carlos had not yet fully seized power, he rarely set foot on land outside of Ma Deli.

Like this kind of national-level inspection, Carlos had only conducted it three times so far.

After entering the Barcelona municipal government, the Mayor of Barcelona reported the progress of the formation of the special municipality so far, and also reported the development situation of Barcelona in recent years.

As Spain's second-largest city, Barcelona's population growth rate was not much different from that of Ma Deli.

Currently, Ma Deli has a permanent population of 760,000, while Barcelona's permanent population is 630,000; the gap between the two is not large.

If the workers in the industrial zone are included, Barcelona's actual population is even larger than Ma Deli's. Coupled with the reason of being located by the sea, Barcelona can also welcome a large number of tourists every year, and the city scale is not inferior to Ma Deli at all.

The motorcade passed through the streets and alleys of Barcelona, and Carlos was also carefully observing the situation in Barcelona.

At present, Barcelona's development is still quite rapid. The city's road construction is not inferior to Ma Deli's at all; with cars driving on the streets of Barcelona, one cannot feel any bumpiness at all.

Speaking of road construction, perhaps many people would not think of it. In this era when asphalt roads have not been widely used, road construction in European countries is not dominated by concrete surfaces; most of the roads in various countries use surfaces leveled with pebbles and gravel or surfaces rammed with mud.

These types of road surfaces all have such or such problems. Roads paved with pebbles and gravel cannot achieve true flatness, and cars cannot drive at high speeds on such road surfaces.

Needless to say, for roads rammed with mud, it is fine on sunny days, but once it rains, such road surfaces become muddy and unbearable, making it very difficult for pedestrians and vehicles to pass.

As Spain's second-largest city, Barcelona's urban construction is better than Carlos expected.

On the road from Valencia to Barcelona, Carlos saw too many rural dirt roads, and also saw gravel roads connecting major cities.

After the train entered Barcelona, those dirt roads that relied more on the weather had disappeared, and there were more roads paved with pebbles and gravel.

After entering the urban area of Barcelona, the gravel and pebble roads also disappeared, replaced by a small amount of concrete road surfaces and a large number of asphalt roads.

The so-called asphalt roads are actually roads paved with bitumen.

Unlike the asphalt roads of later generations, the asphalt roads of this era had asphalt extracted from the resin of cypress plants, which is also the origin of the name "cypress asphalt."

Because it was extracted from the resin of plants, this led to the fact that the output of asphalt had always been low, and asphalt roads could not be built on a large scale.

Currently, among all cities in Spain, only large cities like Ma Deli and Barcelona can see the construction of asphalt roads.

Although asphalt roads have the advantages of being flatter and more sturdy and durable compared to gravel roads, pebble roads, and dirt roads, asphalt roads also have some disadvantages.

For example, asphalt will melt at high temperatures, and there is a risk of road surface cracking, etc., which, like the output of asphalt, limits the popularization of asphalt roads.

After listening to the report of the Barcelona municipal government on the formation of the special municipality and the work in recent years, Carlos led the party to the Barcelona industrial zone in a grand manner.

The person in charge of leading the way this time was not the Mayor of Barcelona, but the head of the industrial zone who had been looking forward to it for a long time, Baron Angelo Orcajo.

On the road from the Barcelona urban area to the industrial zone, Baron Angelo Orcajo introduced to Carlos, who was in the same car, with a respectful face: "Your Majesty, please look, this is the highway we built in conjunction with the Barcelona municipal government connecting the industrial zone and the urban area.

This main road has a total length of 12.7 kilometers, which can ensure that the public can conveniently travel between the urban area and the industrial zone. The entire main road adopts a two-way six-lane design; the two lanes on the left are for car traffic, and the one lane on the right is for horse-drawn carriages and other means of transport.

On both sides of the main road, there are also sidewalks provided for pedestrians to walk. This also makes the width of our main road exceed 20 meters, which is currently the widest road in Spain."

Carlos nodded, his gaze looking at the extremely wide road in front of him, and he vaguely found a trace of the feeling of later generations.

In the era before cars, Spain's road planning was not so particular. Even most roads were dirt roads, and naturally, there was no such thing as lanes and lines.

But with the birth of cars, Spain's laws and regulations regarding traffic have also been further improved.

Especially in cities, most roads have specific lane and line markings, which can facilitate car and carriage drivers to keep driving in their own lanes.

The main reason for doing this is to avoid the occurrence of traffic accidents, at least to reduce the probability of traffic accidents.

In this era, there are no cameras and networks; once a traffic accident occurs, it is very simple to want to escape.

Unless someone is hit in full view, it is difficult to find the guy who crashed or hit someone a few hours after the traffic accident occurs.

Spain's approach is to send police to guard some intersections with high traffic flow, which facilitates the arrest of perpetrators at the first moment a traffic accident occurs.

These police officers who guard intersections or other places to help the city manage traffic have now been separated from the security department and belong to the management of each city.

They also have a brand-new name, called urban traffic police, which is exactly the traffic police of later generations.

Because Spain does not ban guns, even urban traffic police are equipped with firearms.

The power of urban traffic police is also much greater than that of later traffic police. In addition to being able to handle traffic accidents in front of them, urban traffic police also have the power to handle cases.

Unlike the ordinary police under the jurisdiction of the security department, urban traffic police belong to the municipal government of each city, and they are also the only armed force in various parts of Spain.

In order to prevent some people with ulterior motives from using urban traffic police to achieve their own goals, Spain has strictly limited the number of urban traffic police that each city can have.

First of all, only cities with a population of over 100,000 can establish an urban traffic police bureau. With an urban traffic police bureau, they can recruit a certain number of urban traffic police.

According to the different population scale of each city, the number of traffic police that can be recruited is also different.

Currently, only Ma Deli and Barcelona are qualified to recruit 200 urban traffic police; the number of urban traffic police that other cities can recruit is much smaller than these two cities.

"Your Majesty, the two main roads from Barcelona to the industrial base have now been fully paved with asphalt. According to the feedback from the workers in the industrial base, the construction of these two roads has greatly facilitated the journey of workers between the city and the industrial base, and trains and trams have also increased their choices." Baron Angelo Orcajo continued to introduce:

"Currently, the industrial base has no new construction plans, but according to our estimates, the production capacity of the industrial base will still maintain a certain scale of growth in the next few years.

If the municipal government can allocate another sum of money, I have the confidence to increase the production capacity of the industrial base by at least 20% in the next five years, and let the industrial base add at least 100,000 jobs."

Hearing what Baron Angelo Orcajo said, Carlos's gaze immediately turned from the road outside to him, and he asked with a little curiosity: "Are you sure? Baron Orcajo.

This is a 20% increase in production capacity and 100,000 jobs; you should know what this represents for Barcelona."

A 20% increase in production capacity does not seem like much, but this is Spain's largest industrial base at present. Being able to increase production capacity by 20% without expanding the industrial base is already a quite excellent achievement.

Not to mention adding 100,000 jobs, this will make Barcelona highly favored by the public in the next few years, and many people will travel thousands of miles, dragging their families to Barcelona to look for more job opportunities.

The Barcelona municipal government only needs to pay a sum of money, and in the next few years, industry and economy can have rapid development, and even the population can catch up.

Ten thousand jobs represent not just ten thousand people, but ten thousand families, the source of income for hundreds of thousands of people.

If it is really as Baron Angelo Orcajo said, Carlos even has reason to believe that Barcelona will surpass Ma Deli and become Spain's first city with a population of over one million.

Spain has not yet had a city with a population of one million, which is also a point of regret for Carlos.

Although Ma Deli has high hopes of becoming the first city with a population of over one million, according to Ma Deli's current population growth rate, it will take at least about 5 years to have a population of over one million.

If Barcelona adds another 100,000 jobs in the next few years, then it really has a chance to surpass Ma Deli and become Spain's most populous, industrially strongest, and economically most developed city.

"How much capital do you need?" Carlos did not ask for the opinion of the Mayor of Barcelona, but looked directly at Baron Angelo Orcajo and asked.

"Your Majesty, to achieve the results I mentioned, a conservative estimate requires at least 35 million pesetas in capital. If there can be 50 million pesetas in capital, it would be better; I have full confidence in achieving the goal I mentioned in the next five years." Looking at Carlos's posture of "if you dare to say it, I dare to lend the money," Baron Angelo Orcajo was overjoyed and hurriedly stated his capital requirements that he had already calculated.

Baron Angelo Orcajo was really not just talking. He had long-term planning for the development of the Barcelona industrial base and believed that the Barcelona industrial base had not yet exerted its potential.

Although the Barcelona industrial base had been built for several years, there were still a large number of workers who were still at the apprentice stage.

This was also something that could not be helped; after all, Spain did not have that many workers at the beginning, and these workers were all able to barely master a certain working ability through short-term training in technical schools or self-teaching in various factories.

The ability of these workers trained in short-term training was definitely not comparable to the skilled workers in factories in other European countries.

But the good news was that with the accumulation of these workers' working time, after they gradually became familiar with the work at hand, they could also grow into qualified skilled workers, which in disguise increased the production capacity of the industrial base.

Part of the increase in industrial output value mentioned by Baron Angelo Orcajo came from the growth of these workers.

As for the jobs, it was mainly the support of the industrial base for some enterprises.

Currently, Spain's overall economic environment is still relatively good, and even the economic environment of the entire Europe is gradually recovering.

After the last economic crisis completely passed, Europe's economy ushered in prosperity again. It's just that various countries were a bit lingering in fear, and the development speed was not as exaggerated as before the arrival of the economic crisis.

Among many European countries, Spain's current development speed can already be considered relatively rapid.

Against such a background, it is relatively easy for factories in the industrial base to make money. The Spanish government originally had various support and subsidies for these factories, and the industrial base pushed for more support and subsidy policies, while striving for more orders for them; factories would definitely recruit more employees, which is exactly the origin of the jobs.

Coupled with the fact that the Barcelona industrial base has not yet reached the estimated number of workers so far.

Before building the Barcelona industrial base, the Spanish government's expectation for the industrial base was a super-large industrial base that could accommodate 500,000 workers.

But so far, the number of workers in the Barcelona industrial base is less than 400,000, and it has not reached the original expectation.

There are many reasons why it did not reach the original expectation. First of all, the population in the Catalonia region is not enough, which limits the development of the industrial base.

Although Catalonia was once Spain's third most populous state, it only had 3.12 million people.

How exaggerated are the 500,000 jobs in the Barcelona industrial base? If only Catalans were recruited, this means that for every 6 Catalans, 1 of them works in the Barcelona industrial base.

Such a situation is obviously impossible to achieve; after all, Catalonia cannot put all its manpower into the industrial base.

Even in Barcelona, there are industries such as ports, education, medical care, and agriculture that need a large amount of manpower.

Coupled with the fact that factories have certain requirements when recruiting, either they have a certain cultural level, or they have to undergo training in technical schools established by the government, which also further limits the development of the number of workers.

With Barcelona becoming a special municipality and having the resource tilt of the entire Spain, the Barcelona industrial base can also obtain a sufficient number of workers in the next few years, and filling the vacancy of the remaining 100,000 jobs will naturally be very simple.

With the increase in workers, the output value of various factories will also increase, and the output value of the industrial base will naturally increase significantly.

In this way, the goal mentioned by Baron Angelo Orcajo will be easily achieved, which is a huge political achievement for Baron Angelo Orcajo and a good improvement for Spain.

(End of chapter)