Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 174: Chapter 140: Rectifying the Slums (Double Length Chapter)_3

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

On December 2, 1872, Jovellar Soler resubmitted a proposal to the Spanish Parliament, including the extensive construction of affordable housing in Madrid, with plans to save some expenses through rent collection, aiming to reform Madrid’s slums at a lower cost.

Additionally, the proposal included measures to encourage residents from the slums to work in factories on the outskirts of Madrid, aiming to effectively increase their actual income, thus minimizing the impact of slum reforms.

Although the new industrial district was being built in Barcelona, Madrid itself also had industrial zones. However, Madrid’s industry was more scattered, with factories found throughout the suburbs, making its overall industrial scale even higher than that of Barcelona.

If these factories in the outskirts of Madrid could be effectively utilized to provide more jobs for residents of the slums, it could change their opinion and gain more support for the slum reform policies.

Overall, providing housing for tens of thousands of Spaniards living in slums required a significant budget, but the amount was not as large as imagined.

After all, housing prices in this era were not very high, and Madrid was just a small city with a population that had only just exceeded 400,000.

With sufficient land and building materials, constructing simple buildings like affordable housing was quite inexpensive.

Considering the actual needs of these people, a family of four required approximately 50 square meters of living space. Spain did not have shared areas, and while 50 square meters was not large, it was adequate for the daily life of a family of four.

As for toilets, 1 to 2 public toilets could be built on each floor to meet the sanitary needs of residents. Additionally, a certain number of large public toilets could be constructed in each area to effectively improve the sanitation of public areas.

Given these requirements, the cost of constructing the buildings was significantly reduced. For the Spanish Government, this was not an unaffordable budget.

After all, the promised 500 million franc loan from the French was about to be disbursed, and with this loan, the budget for reforming the Madrid slums was only a small portion of it.

After Jovellar Soler submitted the proposal to Parliament, Prime Minister Prim understood who was pushing for it.

For Prime Minister Prim, it was clear which Conservative Party members had pledged their support. Since the young His Majesty the King intended to promote the reform of the Madrid slums, Prime Minister Prim was naturally pleased about it.

After all, this was part of the reforms; it just happened earlier than expected. Since the King actively supported such a plan, he certainly would not oppose it.

With the indication from Prime Minister Prim, members of the Progressive Party expressed their support for the proposal, and, after persuasion by Jovellar Soler, members of the Conservative Party also voted in favor.

With the support of the two major parties, the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party, the proposal was quickly passed in Parliament, with other opposing parties and members being just a minority.

Although the slum reform proposal was passed, proper discussions were still needed on how to implement it.

For the government, reforming Madrid was a necessity, but it could not be done all at once. The reform of all slums had to be prioritized, with priority given to collapsing buildings, followed by unsanitary areas, and finally areas that were just relatively unsanitary.

After such allocation, there were not many slums that needed immediate reform, with only a few tens of thousands of residents.

However, the overall construction demand was still significant. It would be difficult for domestic construction teams in Spain to complete it in a short time. The reform of the slums needed to be rapidly completed, so to achieve this goal, the Spanish Government decided to open international bidding to seek help from foreign construction companies to build more affordable housing more quickly in Spain.

There was nothing special about the construction of affordable housing. The requirements for such housing were low, needing only to be sturdy and habitable.

Compared to houses in the slums, sturdy buildings made of reinforced concrete were already warmer, more spacious, and brighter.

What the government needed to study was not how to build affordable housing, but how to allocate it to the residents of the slums once it was built.

Once again, free distribution was impossible, and Prime Minister Prim’s stance was the same. Similar to previouse land policies, these houses were still to be leased externally.

Yet, considering that those who truly needed these affordable houses were extremely low-income families, the rent for these houses had to be minimal.

Based on the current per capita income in Spain, the government ultimately set the rent for affordable housing at 2 cents per square meter per month.

Generally, a family of four required about 50 square meters, with a monthly rent of 100 cents or 1 Pesseta. Annual rent was only 12 Pessetas, roughly one-tenth of the current per capita annual income.

This rent was something that the vast majority of families could afford. To use future terms as an example, if the per capita income was 4,000 yuan per month, the annual income would be 48,000 yuan. The monthly rent for a 50 square meter affordable house would be 400 yuan, which was not too high.

Of course, considering the existence of some very impoverished families, this rent was not entirely fixed. If families lacked labor and had incomes far below the average, the government could reduce the rent for the first three years or provide certain rental subsidies to ensure all low-income groups had housing.

Furthermore, the environment of these affordable houses could not be too good; individual houses would not be equipped with toilets. It was not because the Spanish Government was unwilling to provide better living conditions for low-income groups, but to prevent higher-income groups from taking over low-income housing resources.

The houses were primarily required by low-income groups. If the living conditions of affordable housing were too good, it would certainly attract the attention of those who were not low-income.

Affordable housing was, after all, built at a financial loss by the government, so the fewer, the better. If middle and high-income groups seized the affordable housing resources, either many actual low-income people would not get housing, or the government would be forced to build more houses, leading to more middle and high-income groups vying for them, creating a vicious cycle.