Chapter 144: That Time I Started Redevelopment in South America (3)

TL: Skye

For more than fifty years after independence, Libertad had no city hall.

In a way, that was only natural.

The capital, Libertad, was practically synonymous with San Marcos itself.

After all, if more than 98 percent of the population lived there, wasn't that basically the country?

But things changed after the Unregistered persons were entered into the system through the Resident Registration Project launched by the Yu-jin administration.

It turned out that nearly three million people lived outside Libertad as well.

In the end, Yu-jin came to recognize the need for Local Autonomy.

The central government's reach simply could not extend effectively into the provinces.

Whenever it wanted to implement a policy, it had to dispatch civil servants, wasting a tremendous amount of administrative capacity each time.

But establishing local governments wasn't easy either.

Society was not yet mature enough for it, and there was too little confidence in the abilities of the civil servants.

Then a perfect opportunity presented itself to Yu-jin.

Choi City, a special-purpose city.

And since it happened to be close to Libertad, it was the perfect place to experiment with Local Autonomy.

So he appointed Lucio's cousin, Antonio Carvalho, as Mayor of Choi City...

The results were enormously satisfying.

Antonio used his expertise to run Choi City, a city built for a specialized purpose, exceptionally well.

And thanks to that, the central government was able to save a tremendous amount of administrative capacity as well.

That meant the capital, Libertad, was next.

If Local Autonomy could be successfully established in Libertad, there was no doubt that the current inefficient administrative system would improve dramatically. The added expertise went without saying.

There was just one problem... there was no suitable candidate.

Yu-jin had once offered the position of Mayor of Libertad to Senior Secretary for Construction Ramos, who at least had the relevant expertise...

'Please spare me, Your Excellency!'

'...?'

'I, Ramos, have lived only for Your Excellency! Not once, not for a single day, have I ever entertained any other thoughts!'

For some inexplicable reason, the man had dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

The other Senior Secretaries had reacted much the same way, making it nearly impossible to find anyone suitable for the job. Then, just in time, Yu-jin discovered the perfect candidate in Marco and promptly appointed him Mayor.

And so Marco, who had involuntarily become the first Mayor of Libertad, spent his days and nights running himself ragged. No, he had no choice but to.

After leaving the Presidential Palace and getting into a car to head for the official residence assigned to him...

“If you happen to disappoint His Excellency, you may not make it back to America alive.”

“......”

“If you need anything, contact me here.”

He had found himself face-to-face with Lucio, smiling as he handed him a business card.

Marco felt cheated.

'You said it was paradise! You said we'd make our homeland prosperous together in our old age!'

James had never told him anything about this.

And there had been no way for Marco to find out about it beforehand, either.

This was San Marcos, rapidly emerging as one of the United States' highest-priority allies.

How could a country like that be a dictatorship?

On top of that, hadn't it just made a huge spectacle of holding a presidential election?

If Marco had known, he never would have come.

But the milk had already been spilled.

Now that he was Libertad's Mayor-designate, Marco had no choice but to do everything in his power to survive.

With his woefully understaffed team, he walked every corner of Libertad analyzing the terrain, drew up plans of the existing infrastructure and devised ways to address its shortcomings, and even...

“Hi, Jonsen! It's me, Marco. So, I'm in San Marcos right now..”

He even began calling in former colleagues he had worked with.

'Well, look at that! New hands have arrived to take responsibility for Libertad!'

And every time someone arrived, Yu-jin smiled in satisfaction at having recruited another expert and graciously bestowed a government post upon them.

And now, three weeks later.

Marco finally came to the Presidential Palace carrying the finished product.

“It's complete.”

Marco spread an enormous set of plans across the table.

A master plan for Libertad's Redevelopment spanning three A0 sheets.

Yu-jin couldn't hide his admiration as he looked down at the plans.

The city drawn there was completely different from the Libertad that existed now.

“First, the roads.”

Marco pointed to the red lines.

“We'll demolish all the existing winding alleyways and redesign the road network into a grid. The main arterial roads will be widened to three lanes in each direction, and we'll build a new ring road linking the outskirts of the city. The layout is designed so fire engines and ambulances can reach anywhere within five minutes.”

“Impressive.”

Marco pointed to the blue lines.

“Next is the sewer system. We'll completely remove the century-old sewer pipes and replace them with a dual system separating stormwater from sewage. We'll also install stormwater retention facilities in low-lying areas to prevent flooding even during hurricane-level rainfall.”

“So the reason Old Town flooded during hurricanes really was insufficient sewer capacity.”

“The new system is designed to handle up to three times the current population.”

This time, Marco pointed to the yellow lines.

“Next is the power grid. We plan to remove all the utility poles above ground and bury the power lines underground. There won't be any more blackouts caused by poles toppling during hurricanes.”

“......”

“The green areas are parks. We'll place a small park in every block and build a large civic park in the center of the Redevelopment district. Like Central Park in New York, it will serve as the lungs of the city.”

Yu-jin pointed toward the residential areas and asked.

“The residential areas are spread out. Why?”

“Because if residential and commercial districts are kept separate, traffic congestion is unavoidable.”

“Ah.”

Realizing why the subways and roads heading toward Gangnam were packed solid every morning, Yu-jin nodded.

“But wouldn't it be easier to manage things if the residential districts were all concentrated together?”

“There certainly are advantages to that, but...”

Marco replied in a meaningful tone.

“I thought it would be fine because the people of San Marcos don't need to be managed.”

“Hmm... Our citizens certainly do have an exceptional respect for the law.”

The crime rate was in the zero-point-something percent range, after all.

“......”

Yu-jin studied the plans for a long time.

Narrow roads, flooding, blackouts, a lack of green space. The plan identified every weakness Libertad had and solved them one by one, bringing a satisfied smile to his face.

“Excellent. Recruiting you as Mayor really was the right decision.”

“......”

Relief appeared on Marco's face.

“Thank you. Then we'll finalize the design plans, consult with the contractors, and begin construction...”

“Let's break ground next week.”

“S-so soon? We still need an environmental assessment, and there are permits and approvals to deal with...”

Marco's eyes widened.

“Every day counts. Why waste time worrying about all that? I can just approve it myself.”

“......”

Faced with what amounted to a declaration that Yu-jin himself was the state, Marco hesitated for a moment before asking.

“But we'll still need to procure the materials...”

“I've already had them prepared. Don't worry.”

***

There was, in fact, a reason for Yu-jin's confidence.

Tortilla Cement and International Steel.

When Yu-jin first became president and began highway construction, the first thing he paid attention to was cement.

Whether it was highways, buildings, or bridges, nothing could be built without cement.

And if San Marcos was going to keep growing over the medium and long term, it couldn't afford to depend on imports.

Domestic production was essential.

So although San Marcos relied on imports to some extent at first, before long Yu-jin established Tortilla Cement under Tortilla Group.

And as San Marcos developed, Tortilla Cement grew at a frightening pace alongside it.

Through highway construction, New Town construction, and Choi City construction, its production capacity exploded, and in terms of revenue it had grown large enough to rival Tortilla Energy.

On top of that, San Marcos had abundant limestone deposits, so there was virtually no chance of the country ever running short of cement.

And now.

His Excellency's orders came down to Tortilla Cement.

The outskirts of Libertad.

Tortilla Cement factory.

Hundreds of concrete mixer trucks stood lined up in the storage yard. The moment news of the Redevelopment came down, the factory had gone into full production.

Carlos, president of Tortilla Cement, stood in front of the factory's main gate rallying the employees.

“This is His Excellency's order! No matter what happens, we meet the production deadline! Understood?!”

“Yes!”

“The same goes for quality! If anything comes out below the required strength, I'll throw the lot of you into the limestone mine, so keep your heads screwed on straight!”

The pride of participating in a national project personally spearheaded by the president made everyone move that much faster.

“Let's go!”

VROOOOM!

Outside the factory, an endless procession of dump trucks rolled along.

Trucks hauling raw materials from the limestone mines in the north came and went without pause.

The column of dump trucks barreling along in clouds of dust looked like an armored division.

The atmosphere at International Steel, on the other hand, was a little different.

The eastern coast of San Marcos.

International Steel.

San Marcos's only steel company, and a Korean-affiliated enterprise.

It was a government joint venture established when International, one of Korea's major steelmakers, entered San Marcos, and its steelworks was equipped with state-of-the-art electric arc furnaces and automated rolling mills brought in from Korea.

If the executives and employees of Tortilla Cement moved like an erupting volcano, the people at International Steel never ran.

They weren't actually that busy.

The reason was simple.

Even before the Redevelopment was announced... no, from the moment the plant opened its doors until now, it had been operating at full capacity.

San Marcos never ran out of large-scale construction projects.

Demand for rebar increased every year, making demand forecasting unnecessary.

Whatever they produced sold as fast as they could make it.

Thanks to that, the factory was running at 100 percent capacity, and the mountains of inventory already piled up were more than enough to meet the requirements of the Redevelopment.

If Tortilla Cement was the protein, International Steel was the skeleton.

As long as those two factories existed, there was no chance San Marcos's construction sites would grind to a halt.

*

With the materials ready, construction came next.

The Korean construction companies had already begun demolition work.

THOOM!

The excavator's massive arm slammed into the wall of a century-old stone building.

THOOM!

After two consecutive blows, cracks appeared in the wall. They spread across its surface like a spiderweb.

The third blow.

THOOOOM!

At last, the wall collapsed. Bricks and dust mixed together as an enormous cloud billowed upward.

A building that had stood since the colonial era was reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds.

And within that rubble, traces of history emerged.

Fragments of tile from the Spanish colonial era. Bricks still bearing bullet marks from the War of Independence, and more.

In most countries, construction would stop when cultural artifacts were uncovered, but nothing of the sort happened in San Marcos.

One of Yu-jin's guiding principles was that people lived in the present, not the past.

Yu-jin's will was the will of the state.

Naturally, the civil servants followed Yu-jin's pragmatic approach as well.

CLATTER!

A crane indifferently scooped up rubble mixed with cultural artifacts and dumped it into the waiting dump trucks.

RUMBLE!

As soon as one truck filled up, it departed for the waste disposal site, and an empty truck moved forward from the queue.

Dust rose from Redevelopment sites all across the city. From the sky, the entirety of Libertad's Old Town would have looked as though it were buried beneath a pale haze.

Across dozens of blocks at once, the roar of excavator engines mixed with the crashing of collapsing buildings.

Workers were sent in wherever the heavy machinery couldn't handle the job.

“This is His Excellency's will! Grab a shovel and follow me!”

“WOOOOOOOO!”

“His Excellency's grace is as vast as the sky~”

“The more we look up, the higher it rises~”

And so Libertad began to be turned upside down.

*****

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