Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 173: Chapter 140: Rectifying the Slums (Double-Length Chapter) (Part 2)

If Madrid is notorious for its dirty, chaotic image, it’s also a blow to Spain’s own immigration efforts.

Barcelona is still temporarily the territory of the Catalans, and the government should not carry out large-scale reforms there. Currently, Madrid is the most suitable city for reform, and if successful, it can be promoted nationwide; if unsuccessful, it would not have too great an impact.

On November 30, 1872, a member of parliament submitted a bill to the Spanish Parliament regarding the reorganization of order in Madrid’s city districts, sparking a heated debate throughout the assembly.

The reason for the heated discussion was the scope of reorganization, which included most of the peripheral areas of Madrid, with a large number of slums and lower-class Spaniards, at least tens of thousands of people.

Reorganizing these slums also means providing new accommodation for these tens of thousands of people, otherwise chaos would surely ensue.

This would be a significant expense and would require re-planning Madrid’s districts to construct relocation sites for these slum dwellers, preferably not too far from where they work.

There are many advantages to doing this. Not only could the city center be re-planned, allowing Madrid, while maintaining its current city size, to accommodate more population and becoming cleaner and tidier, looking more like a modern metropolis.

But the drawbacks are equally numerous. Firstly, re-planning the city and providing enough living space for slum dwellers requires substantial input.

On top of this, whether all residents within the reorganization scope are willing to relocate, and whether there are adequate construction teams to quickly build more buildings for these residents to live in are also worth considering.

Because of the vast interests involved, this proposal was voted on for several days in Parliament, attracting extensive discussion among members, but there was no clear outcome.

The topics discussed in Parliament also attracted the attention of Prime Minister Prim and Carlo. Regardless of Prime Minister Prim’s stance, for Carlo, reorganizing Spain’s slums is very necessary.

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

Reorganizing the slums is an additional expense for the government, but aside from spending money, there are no negative effects. If the number of Spanish slums can be effectively reduced, allowing slum residents to have houses made of reinforced concrete, they could in turn garner these residents’ support.

However, the houses should definitely not be given out for free. It wouldn’t be fair to those outside the reorganization scope, and those receiving free houses might not feel grateful towards the government and the Royal Family.

As the saying goes, people often do not cherish what is easily obtained. If the government freely distributes houses to slum residents, they might initially feel grateful to the government and Royal Family, but not necessarily over time.

Compared to free distribution, Carlo actually has a better plan, which is affordable housing meant for posterity.

Affordable housing is actually cheap residences built by the government for poor communities. These houses typically have low rent, ensuring that the poor can afford to rent them.

Since these houses are specially provided for the poor, they don’t need to be constructed too exquisitely. The housing area and space can be reduced, which in turn lowers the rent.

Considering the later affordable housing policy, Carlo also decided not to hesitate anymore and push Spain to construct houses similar to affordable housing to meet the slum population’s housing needs.

However, such a proposal certainly cannot be put forward by Carlo himself. After all, affordable housing requires rent, and reorganizing the slums, there will definitely be people unwilling to change their current lives.

Fortunately, after several years in Spain, the number of usable people under Carlo has also been continuously increasing. Currently, most seats in the Spanish Parliament are controlled by Prime Minister Prim, but many seats don’t belong to the Progressive Party.

The previously mentioned Spanish Conservative Party also holds parliamentary seats, and their philosophy is more inclined towards the Royalist Party, so naturally, some choose to rely on Carlo.

Jovellar Soler is just such a candidate. His party, the Conservative Party, is more supportive of the monarchy; however, they don’t oppose Prime Minister Prim’s reforms too much.

It seems strange that the Conservative Party doesn’t oppose reforms, but actually, it’s quite normal. Because the truly conservative and obsolete members of the Conservative Party were eliminated during the revolution, the remaining Conservative Party supports the monarchy’s conservatism, not reform conservatism.

Those obsolete Conservatives disappeared along with the Bourbon Dynasty in Spain’s history, and as long as Prime Minister Prim’s reforms don’t experience utter failure, or Carlo’s reign doesn’t suffer several failed wars, the Bourbon Dynasty is unlikely to be restored.

Queen Isabella and her father brought too much pain to the Spaniards, which cannot be remedied in just decades.

The historical reason why the Bourbon Dynasty was restored was that Amadeo, elected as Monarch, failed to advance Spain’s reforms, and the Republican Party that overthrew the monarchy performed worse than the monarchy, ultimately leading to the restoration of the Bourbon Dynasty.