Chapter 142: Slum Rectification (Two chapters in one)

At the end of November 1872, new problems appeared in front of the Spanish government.

At present, the development and construction of various parts of Spain are going smoothly, and the development of Madrid and Barcelona is even more outstanding, and they are called the twin stars among many cities in Spain.

Of course, the main reason is that the overall population of Spain is too small, and the entire country does not even have a city with a population of over one million.

At present, among the major powers, London, the capital of the United Kingdom, is the most populous city, with a population approaching 4 million.

Such a population size is extremely exaggerated, and it is not much different from small countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. But the actual population of the United Kingdom is not as good as that of Germany, France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This also shows how exaggerated the industrial and economic development of London, as the core city of the First Industrial Revolution, is.

Although the reputation of the Fog City is not good, London at this time is indeed the most dazzling city in the world and a truly international metropolis in this era.

Compared with London, the starlight of Paris is dimmer. According to current data, the population of Paris is about 2 million, which is slightly more than half of the population of London.

However, compared with the capitals of other powers, Paris' population still ranks among the top. Berlin and Vienna, which are behind, have a population of only one million, and are inferior in both size and economic volume.

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

At present, the population of New York is close to one million, and it will achieve a population explosion with the rapid development of the United States.

Compared with London and Paris, New York is not ranked now, but in the next few decades, New York will have developed into an international metropolis second only to London, easily surpassing many European cities with a longer history.

At present, the population of Madrid has barely exceeded 400,000, which is considered a big city in Spain, but it can only be considered a larger city in the whole of Europe.

Barcelona, ​​another city of the twin stars, also has a population of more than 360,000 at this time. In addition to the two twin stars of Madrid and Barcelona, ​​other cities in Spain are small in size. Even Seville, which has a small industrial base, has a population of only over 100,000.

From this aspect, we can also see why the new industrial base was located in Barcelona. Because apart from the capital Madrid, only Barcelona's population can afford the construction of a medium-sized industrial base.

The industrial base currently being built in Barcelona will provide at least 50,000 jobs. If Barcelona did not have a population of nearly 400,000, I am afraid that these 50,000 jobs would not be filled.

Even the current population of Barcelona is far from enough. With the construction of industrial cities, more people will definitely be absorbed from the surrounding villages and small cities.

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

This phenomenon is inevitable, and it often happens now and in the future.

The rise of a super-large city represents the decline of several small and medium-sized cities. After the industrial base in Barcelona is built, it will definitely absorb the population of the villages and small cities around Barcelona.

It can be expected that the population of Barcelona will usher in a period of rapid growth in the next ten years. However, the population of towns around Barcelona may not necessarily usher in growth, and may even face a decline.

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

Because only such a big city can support the construction of industrial bases, and the construction of large industrial bases can improve the industrial scale and environment of Spain.

Let's go back to Madrid. As the largest city in Spain, Madrid has a population of more than 400,000 and is the shining pearl of the Iberian Peninsula.

But this does not mean that Madrid is an extremely prosperous city. In addition to a few busy streets in the center of Madrid, there are not many high-rise buildings in Madrid, and there are even many slums.

The Spanish government during the reign of Queen Isabel only paid attention to the construction of busy streets, and did not care about the slums where the lower-class civilians lived.

This also gave Madrid, which was originally one, two scenes. The streets in the city center are extremely prosperous, and the flow of people does not seem to be inferior to other major European cities.

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

This not only seriously damaged the urban impression of Madrid, but also increased the possibility of disease transmission. The sanitary environment in these slums is extremely poor, and some people even urinate and defecate in public places openly.

It is precisely because of the extremely poor sanitary conditions here that the dignitaries are unwilling to go to the slums, and this place has become a paradise for criminals with a very poor security environment.

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

After all, it is the capital of Spain and the largest city. Madrid is one of Spain's business cards to the outside world and a means of propaganda to attract immigrants.

If Madrid is famous for its dirty and messy image, it will also be a blow to Spain's own immigration work.

Barcelona is still the territory of the Catalans for the time being, and the government should not carry out large-scale rectification. At present, the most suitable city for rectification is Madrid. If it succeeds, it can be promoted nationwide. If it fails, it will not have much impact.

On November 30, 1872, a member of parliament submitted a bill to the parliament on rectifying the order of the urban area of ​​Madrid, which aroused heated discussions throughout the Spanish parliament.

The reason for the heated discussion is the scope of rectification. Most of the areas outside Madrid are included, with a large number of slums and Spanish lower-class people, at least hundreds of thousands of people.

Rectifying these slums also means providing new living places for these hundreds of thousands of people, otherwise it will definitely cause chaos.

This is a considerable expense, and it is also necessary to re-plan the urban area of ​​Madrid and build a place for the relocation of these slum people, preferably not too far away from their work.

There are many benefits to doing this. Not only can the urban area of ​​Madrid be replanned, allowing Madrid to accommodate as many people as possible while maintaining the current urban scale, but also become cleaner and tidier, and look more like a modern big city.

But there are also many disadvantages. First of all, it will take a lot of investment to re-plan the city and provide enough living places for the people in the slums.

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

Because of the great interests involved, this proposal was voted on in the parliament for several days, which aroused extensive discussion among the members of the parliament, but there was no clear result.

The hot topic in the parliament also attracted the attention of Prime Minister Primo and Carlo. Regardless of Prime Minister Primo's attitude, it is necessary for Carlo to rectify the slums in Spain.

The housing environment in the slums is very poor, and the sanitary environment is extremely bad. This not only destroys the urban image of Madrid, but also affects the health of the people in the slums.

Rectifying the slums is an additional expense for the government, but there is no bad effect except spending money. If the number of slums in Spain can be effectively improved and the people in the slums can have houses built of reinforced concrete to live in, they can be supported by these people.

But the houses must not be distributed for free, which is not fair to those people who are not within the scope of rectification. For those who get the houses for free, they may not be grateful to the government and the royal family.

There is a saying that what is easy to get is often not cherished. If the government distributes houses to people in slums for free, they will definitely be grateful to the government and the royal family in a short period of time, but it may not be the case over a long period of time.

Compared with distributing houses for free, Carlo actually has a better solution, which is the low-rent housing in later generations.     The so-called low-rent housing is actually cheap housing built by the government to provide to the poor. The rent of these houses is generally very low, ensuring that the poor can also afford it.

Because they are houses specially provided to the poor, these houses do not need to be built too beautifully. The area and space of the house can be reduced in exchange for lower rents.

Thinking of the low-rent housing policy in later generations, Carlo decided not to hesitate and promote Spain to build houses similar to low-rent housing to ensure the housing needs of the slum population.

However, such a proposal must not be made by Carlo himself. After all, low-rent housing also requires rent, and slums will be rectified, and there will definitely be people who are unwilling to change their existing lives.

Fortunately, after coming to Spain for a few years, Carlo has more and more people available. At present, most 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 belongs.

The Spanish Conservative Party mentioned earlier also has seats in parliament. Their ideas are more inclined to the royalist party, so naturally some people will choose to join Carlo.

Jovillar Soler is such a person. His party, the Conservative Party, is more supportive of the monarchy, but there is not much opposition to Prime Minister Primo's reforms.

It seems strange that the Conservative Party does not oppose reform, but it is actually normal to think about it. Because the truly conservative and pedantic Conservative Party members were eliminated as early as the revolution, and the remaining Conservative Party is more conservative in supporting the monarchy rather than conservative in reform.

Those pedantic conservatives disappeared with the Bourbon dynasty in the history of Spain. As long as Prime Minister Primo's reforms did not experience complete failure, or Carlo experienced several relatively unsuccessful wars during his reign, it would be basically impossible for the Bourbon dynasty to be restored.

Queen Isabel and her father brought too much pain to the Spanish people, which could not be made up in a few decades.

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

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

On December 2, 1872, Jovillar Soller resubmitted a proposal to the Spanish Parliament, which included building a large number of low-rent houses in Madrid, saving some expenses by collecting rent, and trying to rectify the slums in Madrid at a lower cost.

In addition, the proposal also includes encouraging people in civilian areas to work in factories outside Madrid, effectively increasing the actual income of slum residents, and reducing the impact of slum rectification.

Although the new industrial zone is built in Barcelona, ​​Madrid itself also has industrial zones. It's just that Madrid's industry is more dispersed, and factories in the suburbs can be seen everywhere, and the overall industrial scale is even higher than Barcelona.

As long as these factories outside Madrid can be effectively used to provide more jobs for people in the slums, they can also change the opinions of slum residents and make them more supportive of the policy of rectifying slums.

In general, providing housing for more than 100,000 Spaniards living in slums requires a lot of financial budgets, but these financial budgets are not as much as imagined.

After all, housing prices in this era are not that expensive, and Madrid is just a small city with a population of just over 400,000.

In the case of sufficient land and building materials, the buildings are still very simple buildings like low-rent housing, and the overall cost of each house is very cheap.

Considering the actual needs of these people, a family of four needs a housing area of ​​about 50 square meters. There is no public area in Spain. Although 50 square meters is not large, it is indeed enough for the daily life of a family of four.

As for toilets, 1 to 2 public toilets can be built on each floor to meet the hygiene needs of the people. 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 needs, the cost of building buildings is much less. For the Spanish government, this is not an unaffordable budget.

After all, the 500 million francs loan promised by the French is about to arrive one by one. With the help of this loan, the budget for rectifying the slums in Madrid is only a small part of it.

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

For Prime Minister Primo, it is clear who these Conservative MPs have turned to. Since the young king intends to promote the rectification of Madrid's slums, Prime Minister Primo is naturally happy about it.

After all, this is part of the reform, it just happened in advance. Since the king has taken the initiative to support such a plan, he naturally cannot oppose it.

With Prime Minister Primo's signal, the members of the Progressive Party expressed their support for the proposal. And the members of the Conservative Party, under the persuasion of Jovillar Soller, also voted in favor.

Under the promotion of the two major parties of the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party, the proposal was quickly passed in the parliament. The other opposing parties and members were only a minority after all.

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

For the government, rectifying Madrid is a must, but it cannot be done in one go. For the rectification of all slums, it is necessary to prioritize those dangerous building areas, secondly those dirty and messy areas, and finally those areas that are just relatively dirty and messy.

After such an allocation, there are not many slums that need to be rectified first, and there are only tens of thousands of people living in them.

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

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

Compared with the houses in the slums, the solid buildings built with 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 the people in the slums after it is built.

Again, it is impossible to distribute it for free, and the attitude of Prime Minister Primo is the same. Like the previous land, it is still rented out.

However, considering that those who really need these low-rent houses are extremely low-income people, the rent of these low-rent houses must not be too much.

Referring to the current per capita income in Spain, the government finally set the rent of low-rent housing at 2 cents per square meter per month.

Generally, a family of four needs about 50 square meters of living space, 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 most families. Take the future as an example, assuming that the per capita income is 4,000 yuan per month, the annual income is 48,000 yuan. The rent of a 50-square-meter low-rent housing is 400 yuan per month, which is not too high.

Of course, considering that there are indeed a small number of extremely poor families, such rents are not completely fixed. If there are families with a lack of labor and income far below the per capita income, the government can make certain reductions in the rent of low-rent housing for the first three years, or provide certain rental subsidies to such families to ensure that these low-income people have housing.

In addition, the environment of these low-rent housing cannot be too good, and each separate 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 to prevent higher-income people from grabbing the housing 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 definitely attract the attention of some non-low-income people.

Low-rent housing was originally built by the government at a loss, so naturally the fewer it is built, the better. If these middle- and high-income people come to grab low-rent housing, either many truly low-income people will not be able to get houses, or the government will be forced to build more houses, causing more middle- and high-income people to scramble for them, forming a vicious circle.

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