Chapter 143: That Time I Started Redevelopment in South America (2)

TL: Skye

Whoooooom-

A plane from New York touched down, and a stream of passengers poured out.

“All right! Those taking the train to Choi City, head to the left! If you’re taking the bus, keep going straight this way, and if you’re visiting Libertad, head to the right!”

Every last one of them had come for sightseeing, with exactly one exception.

Marco Silva.

Seventy-two years old. A San Marcos-born American.

He was the son of an independence fighter who had fought under Abeiro Miguel during the War of Independence, and after the war ended, his entire family had been exiled to the United States by President Juan Marcos.

Marco grew up in New York afterward, studied diligently, earned a doctorate in urban planning from New York University, and spent thirty years working for the New York City Department of City Planning.

He was a veteran who had participated in some of New York’s biggest projects, including the Hudson Yards redevelopment in Manhattan, the revitalization of Downtown Brooklyn, and the development of Long Island City in Queens.

And now, after retiring, he had set foot in his homeland for the first time in fifty-five years.

“Finally... I’m back.”

Marco stepped outside the airport and drew a deep breath.

Warm, humid air and the smell of the sea.

It was exactly the air of the homeland he remembered from childhood.

‘Father, I’ve come home.’

For one brief moment, he was overcome with emotion.

And that emotion lasted exactly three seconds.

“Are you Dr. Marco Silva?”

“...I am.”

“Thank you for visiting San Marcos. I’m Anna Mitchell, Protocol Secretary at the Presidential Palace. I’ll be accompanying you.”

“A pleasure to meet you. Your English is remarkably fluent.”

“I lived in the United States before becoming a naturalized citizen of San Marcos.”

“Ah, I see. That explains it...”

“This way, please. We have a car waiting.”

With Anna guiding him, Marco made his way out of the airport and climbed into the car waiting to pick him up.

As they headed toward central Libertad, Marco gazed out the window.

The roads were neatly paved, and the roadside trees were well maintained.

The unpaved mud roads he remembered from childhood were nowhere to be seen.

Before long, however, something strange caught his eye.

Posters plastered all over the streets.

They showed an Asian man in a suit with a ceremonial sword at his waist, staring straight ahead, with bold lettering printed beneath him.

[Gambling Is the Fastest Road to Ruin! Only Honest Labor Can Protect Your Family!]

[San Marcos Together with His Excellency! Toward a Brighter Tomorrow!]

[San Marcos Will Not Fall.]

[Don’t Sit at Home Like a Watchdog! Go Forth to the Sacred Workplace!]

Marco looked at Anna.

“Those posters over there...”

“As you can see, that’s His Excellency. He personally served as the model to inspire the people’s enthusiasm for labor.”

“......”

Marco stared at the posters and thought.

‘Something feels off...’

Before going to the Presidential Palace, Marco decided to inspect the Old Town first.

He believed he needed an accurate grasp of the situation before meeting the president if he wanted to offer a proper opinion.

Once Marco stepped out of the car, his expert gaze quickly swept over his surroundings.

‘Most of these roads aren’t even four meters wide. Forget fire engines, even ambulances would have trouble getting through.’

Marco jotted something down in his notebook.

‘Judging by the diameter of the sewer pipes, their capacity is nowhere near sufficient. The low-lying areas must be almost impossible to protect from flooding.’

He looked up at a utility pole. Electrical wires were tangled around it like a spiderweb.

‘It’s obvious they’ve done some work here... but most of the system still relies on utility poles. Burying the lines underground is going to be essential...’

Marco shook his head.

Most of the district was beyond merely old. At this point, it was closer to an archaeological site than a city.

But something else surprised Marco even more.

There were no people.

Not a single person could be seen anywhere in the entire redevelopment zone.

“I need to hear what the residents think. Why isn’t there a single person around?”

“Ah, that’s because the relocation has already been completed.”

“The relocation is finished? For the entire redevelopment zone?”

“Yes. If you’d like, I can call someone who used to live here.”

Marco stopped walking.

“How long has it been since the redevelopment was approved?”

“The redevelopment decision was made three weeks ago, and the residents finished relocating last week.”

“Are you saying... all the residents were relocated in just two weeks?”

“Yes.”

Marco couldn’t understand it.

What on earth had they done to relocate not dozens of people, but hundreds of thousands in just two weeks?

Seeing Marco’s reaction, Anna nodded as if she understood his confusion.

“In San Marcos, His Excellency’s will is effectively the will of the state. The people simply follow.”

“I-Is that so?”

“If you don’t believe me, shall I call someone who used to live here?”

“No, no. That won’t be necessary.”

Marco waved his hands and closed his notebook.

His Excellency’s will was the will of the state?

Wasn’t that exactly the sort of thing one heard in... a dictatorship?

“......”

As an educated man, Marco knew of one such state.

‘The Third Reich...?’

He thought of that forbidden empire that had arisen in Germany in 1933, then quickly shook his head.

‘No. If it were really that kind of country, there’s no way it could have developed this much.’

Right.

He must be imagining things.

He had to be.

After finishing his inspection of the Old Town, Marco climbed back into the car.

Not long after those troubling thoughts crossed his mind, they arrived at the Presidential Palace.

It wasn’t grand.

But it possessed an old-world elegance.

The exterior looked like a renovated colonial-era stone building, with the flag of San Marcos fluttering above it.

Anna led the way with practiced ease.

“This way, please.”

When they reached the office, Anna knocked.

“Your Excellency, Dr. Marco Silva has arrived.”

“Come in.”

The door opened.

Yu-jin rose from his seat with a broad smile and held out his hand.

“Dr. Marco, you’ve come a long way. Thank you for making the trip.”

“It’s an honor to meet...”

His greeting abruptly cut off.

“Hm?”

Something was moving by Yu-jin’s feet.

A creature about the size of a retriever, with golden eyes, black fur, and thick front paws, leaped straight at Marco.

“Raaaawwwr!”

Panther loved people, so to him it was simply a welcome.

Marco did not see it that way.

“Gah!”

The seventy-two-year-old man couldn’t withstand the shock of a jaguar pouncing at him and toppled over.

Thud!

“Huh? D-Dr. Marco?!”

This was bad.

Dr. Marco had suddenly collapsed.

‘Was he exhausted?’

He was an old man, after all. Maybe the flight had worn him out.

Or perhaps Panther was simply so adorable that his heart couldn’t take it.

Of course, that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“We should call the physician.”

First things first, I had to save the man.

Just as I reached for the phone, Isabella stepped forward.

“I’ll wake him up.”

“What? How?”

Instead of answering, Isabella took the ceremonial sword hanging on the wall down, scabbard and all.

And then.

Thunk!

She jabbed the tip of the scabbard squarely into Marco’s chest.

“Ghhhuuugh—!”

Marco’s eyes snapped open as he shot upright.

“H-How did you do that?”

“It’s a technique I learned during my time with the SIA.”

Isabella answered calmly.

“As expected of the SIA...”

While I was busy marveling at that, Panther approached.

Apparently feeling guilty, he lowered his tail and cautiously crept toward Marco before licking his cheek.

“Grrrr.”

As Panther’s dad, I knew that was his way of apologizing.

He did it every time he caused trouble and thought I was about to scold him.

But.

“Aaaah...”

For some reason, Marco’s eyes rolled back again.

“Grrrr?”

And just like that, he passed out again.

“Chief of Staff, please.”

“Yes.”

Isabella raised the ceremonial sword again.

Thunk!

“Ghhhuuuugh—!”

Marco came back to life for the second time.

*

A little while later.

I finally learned why Dr. Marco had fainted.

‘So he was a speciesist...’

Come on, he owned a cat. Why was he afraid of a jaguar?

‘Tsk.’

They were both members of the cat family. I simply couldn’t understand it.

Still, forcing an animal on someone who was afraid of it would have been rude, so I asked Isabella to take Panther outside.

Only after Panther left were we finally able to start the conversation.

“How did you find San Marcos? I heard it’s been almost fifty years since you were last here.”

Marco took a moment to choose his words before answering in a trembling voice.

“It has... changed considerably.”

Not exactly an enthusiastic response.

“What specifically do you think has changed?”

When I asked, Marco hurriedly answered.

“It has developed beyond all comparison with the past. The roads are wider, the people are full of energy, and judging by how well-fed the children look, the food situation has clearly improved as well. All of this was accomplished under Your Excellency’s magnificent leadership, so for San Marcos, it can only be called a blessing.”

Watching him rattle all of that off like a machine-gun rapper made me think I must be doing a decent job running the country after all.

‘Things look different from the outside than they do from the inside.’

He had lived as an American citizen for fifty years, so he certainly counted as an outsider.

Of course, there was another reason I had invited him here today.

“The real reason I asked you here is because I need a proper urban plan. Originally, I was just going to replace the houses destroyed by the hurricane with apartments, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would all be for nothing if the infrastructure couldn’t support them.”

Once we got down to business, Marco’s expression turned serious.

“First of all, I agree with the idea of constructing multi-family housing. It allows for a stable housing supply and offers clear advantages in terms of land-use efficiency.”

“You do?”

“However, you cannot simply build housing and stop there.”

“......”

“Libertad’s current core infrastructure was designed during the colonial era a hundred years ago. The sewer pipes cannot even handle one-third of the current population, and most roads are too narrow for fire engines to enter. The power grid also relies on overhead lines, making it vulnerable to hurricanes.”

Marco took out his notebook as he spoke.

“If you build large-scale apartment complexes under these conditions, you’ll run into serious problems. Sewage will back up, insufficient power will cause blackouts, and the roads will become congested.”

“Then what should we do?”

“You need to design the redevelopment zone as an independent infrastructure system.”

“One infrastructure system?”

“Yes. Lay new water and sewer lines dedicated specifically to the redevelopment zone, expand the power grid and bury it underground. Major roads should be widened to at least two lanes in each direction, and you should design urban expressways as well. Then integrate this new infrastructure seamlessly with the existing city.”

“Wouldn’t that create a huge infrastructure gap between the redeveloped areas and the rest of the city? The difference in property values would become enormous.”

Marco nodded.

“That is the natural outcome.”

“Natural?”

“Look at almost any city in the world, and you’ll rarely find one that develops evenly.”

Marco pointed to several areas on the map.

“Just look at New York. How many times higher are housing prices in Manhattan than in the Bronx? If there are wealthy neighborhoods, there will inevitably be poor neighborhoods and districts where the middle class primarily lives. That’s true not only in the United States, but in London, Paris, Tokyo, and even Seoul, Your Excellency’s hometown.”

Marco looked at Yu-jin.

“As long as society is capitalist, differences in housing prices are inevitable. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Why not?”

“People strive to live in better homes. That effort becomes economic activity, and economic activity is what drives a nation. A young man born in the Old Town works hard and eventually buys himself a good home. That is capitalism.”

Put that way, it sounded plausible.

Until now, everyone had been poor, so housing prices had been more or less the same. But as time passed, differences in wealth were inevitably going to emerge.

‘It’s not like my goal is to create a communist society where everyone gets exactly the same share.’

What politics had to do was create a society where anyone who worked for it could build wealth.

Marco seemed to think the same way, because he offered a similar opinion.

“However, there is one thing you absolutely must never allow.”

“What is it?”

“You cannot let every home become prohibitively expensive.”

Marco’s voice grew heavy.

“If affordable housing for low-income people disappears, some will begin to feel that society has abandoned them. Eventually, some of them simply give up. They give up on work, and they give up on participating in society. The problems caused when those people are pushed onto the streets place an enormous burden on the state.”

“You mean the homeless.”

“Exactly.”

Marco sighed.

“Just look at New York City, where I worked for thirty years. The prices of buildings in Manhattan reach into the sky, yet homeless people sleep in the subway stations directly beneath them. It’s a problem even New York, a city hailed as the greatest in the world, has failed to solve. San Marcos must not repeat the same mistake.”

Differences in housing prices could certainly provide motivation, but extreme disparities seemed capable of tearing society apart.

In other words, we needed to strike a balance between growth and equality.

“After hearing what you have to say, I’m certain now.”

I held out my hand to Marco.

“How would you like to draw that blueprint with me, Mayor Marco?”

“...What?”

Marco’s eyes widened.

“M-Mayor...?”

“Yes. Please take the position of Mayor of Libertad.”

“B-But I’m not a citizen of San Marcos... No, more importantly, there hasn’t even been an election...”

“That’s fine. The president of San Marcos has the authority to appoint anyone to any position.”

“B-But even so...”

“Tsk! I said it’s fine.”

“...I will do my best, Your Excellency.”

And just like that, I recruited Marco as the Mayor of Libertad.

*****

Read more chapters on my Patreon - https://patreon.com/tlskye

If you enjoy this novel, please review and rate it at Novelupdates. Thanks! 😊

To receive the latest update notifications or report mistakes, join our Discord server linked below.'

.gg/woopread-708613326262894654