Kalistani Major History

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Urban blight in Port Swedes reaches dangerous levels
Republican Government to consider urban renewal for Northern Vrassa City, major Mainland cities
Port Swedes, Vrassa
Februrary 7, 5360


Slums like the notorious Emperor Street Neighborhood in Port Swedes may become target for renewal

While the Republican Government has been focused on infrastructure, such as the inauguration of construction on the Ananto-Republican Maglev Train or military construction and procurement, many of mainland Kalistan's cities have been visited by blight. A recent city structure released by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, which is in charge of administering the Republic's housing stock, has found that a troubling 18.3% of the housing stock in mainland Kalistan's major cities are officially "blighted". By the Ministry's own definition, blighted means that the neighborhood has more than 15% of single family dwellings either uninhabitable due to neglect or dilapidation, and less than one grocery/food bank, bank, or major employer such as a factory per 10,000 residents. The combination of dilapidation and food insecurity is indicative of higher than normal levels of poverty, and signal lack of other important social services like police and fire coverage, updated infrastructure, schools, hospitals, clean water, food security, entertainment and jobs in these neighborhoods. There have also been declines in population in the towns that have scored higher than the national average for blight.

The worst blight in the Republic was found in Northern Vrassa, specifically the major northern city of Port Swedes and the border town of Addisjah. Blight was less in rural areas of Vrassa and Odufaray, but it was also prevalent in Nevaras City, Eshar, Sulari and Yoshimi. Ananto was, for the most part spared from much of the blight that is more prevalent on the Mainland. Many factors are blamed for the blight, especially in border towns like Addisjah, Port Swedes and Yoshimi. "These border towns suffer from severe neglect because they are usually ports of entry for foreigners and refugees," said social data expert Miguel Ynez. "This doesn't mean that the refugees and foreign nationals themselves are responsible for the blight directly. They simply come here and do not often bring a lot of resources with them. Then they settle in these border towns, and the increased population, with increased demands on the infrastructure, while the tax base over all of the city decreases causes these cities to have to triage and save neighborhoods where they can, while appearing to neglect neighborhoods which are often in the worst condition."

District Governors have been speaking with a louder voice to the National Assembly in recent years, demanding a larger budget for District and City efforts to combat blight in their cities. "We have been calling on the Republican Government to pay as much attention to our cities as they do to the Railroad, which has yet to really provide a benefit for most of the cities in the Mainland," said Margaret Sondheim, who is president of the Republican Governor's Association, which is a loose working group of chief executives of the Districts. "To date, they have turned a deaf ear to our suggestions. While we ask for money to bulldoze blighted neighborhoods, move refugees and settlers on to some other place in the Republic more capable of taking them in, and increase police and prison funding, the Socialists give us money, lots and lots of money, for schools and hospitals. They tell us to build 'green houses', and are happy to hand us check after check to do that, but we are telling them that what the Districts need is the ability to kick out all these people who are putting major strains on our budgets but don't contribute anything to the tax system."

Tomas Beltram, spokesman for the Ministry of Heath and Social Services and a member of the Socialist Party, said Sondheim's solution to the problem is not so simple. "She and the District Governors would have us all believe that the solution is just to close our borders, kick out foreigners, and dig a big pit in the middle of Ananto to throw all the criminals in and then cover them up with the dirt and forget they are there. That may solve some short term issues, but the long term issues remain: When there are no jobs in a place, no stores, no ways that people can help maintain their cities and neighborhoods, the blight will stay unless you depopulate an entire town. The National Government is looking for ways to actually resolve the root causes of the poverty, crime and neglect in these neighborhoods, not just move the problem onto someone else's doorstep."

Given the unitary nature of Kalistan's Government, where nearly all decisions of any consequence come directly from Kaliburg, the solution will also have to come from there. Beltram noted that the Government is currently working on a program to demolish large areas of blight, buildings that are dilapidated or neglected to the point where they are uninhabitable, and replacing them with inexpensive row housing that can be offered to people on an income based scale. "Step one is to put our neighborhoods back on a paying basis. Empty homes do not generate any taxes, and yet they cost money to cover with water, fire and police. Empty homes and businesses are breeding grounds for criminal activity, violence, and the black market, especially in drugs, which we are seeing more and more people buying from ODEN, cutting with various chemicals to change delivery method and potency and then selling them to people at a significant discount. These dangerous and unregulated chemicals aren't any more addictive, but they are cheaper and they are more dangerous, not only for the users, but for the people who live in neighborhoods where this sort of activity is taking place-- the increase in crime around drug rackets that we are beginning to see in some of our more dangerous cities is astounding. And that's on top of the other forms of violent crime we are seeing."

Step 2 involves helping cities rebuilding their crumbling infrastructure. "The Republic has put a lot of money into transportation infrastructure in the last fifty years," said Beltram. "Now its time we fix our water delivery systems, our sewers, our hospitals, our schools, our roads and our communications infrastructure. We want to give people some pride in their neighborhood." To perform such a huge task, the National Government is considering a temporary revamping of the National Service Program to allow those who are in the Republic temporarily, or who are having a difficult time finding a living, but are either recent or pending Kalistani Nationals, or those who have no intention of remaining longer than the duration of the conflicts in their own nations, to join the NSP, to earn money and gain experience. "We have an NSP the size we need to bottleneck the labor market, to keep Kalistan's population fully employed, and to train new workers as they enter the work force. But they have been behind on these infrastructure projects for sometimes decades. And meanwhile, these neighborhoods who need help sink further and further into dilapidation. If we bring in some of the recent arrivals, and allow them to contribute to the Republic, it is possible that we can not only train workers for city management and civil engineering that they can use when they return home, but maybe we can target these teams to aid cities and Districts in catching up."

Step 3 involves a long term commitment to sustainability, with the aim of lessening the burden on already strained resources. "Some of these cities, like Sulari, are massive in terms of geography," explained Beltram. "Extending services from the city center becomes more geometrically expensive with each algebraic increase in size. For example: we know that one mile away from the main water plant will cost x rubles, two miles will cost 2x total, but 3x, because we also have to pay for and maintain the first x. And three miles away will not cost 4x, but 6x, because we also have to pay for and maintain the first two miles. And so on. It is killing these cities' budgets as these towns grow horizontally. But horizontal growth is not the way to do it. A vertically planned city is far more efficient in terms of city services, because if you can fit the whole of the population from the 2 mile radius into a one mile radius, you change your geometrically increasing expense into an algebraically increasing cost, thus freeing up funds for other things, and protecting city budgets into the future, while still accommodating even dramatically expanding populations."

Addressing blight with these sorts of renewal plans has already met with significant resistance from District Governments. But Beltram brushed that opposition aside. "Well, they can be a partner in our efforts, or they can try to stand in the way. But the solutions they have offered as a body are both shortsighted and they also feel punitive to this Government, and to the Socialist Party. You don't solve crime by putting people in jail. Laws do not deter crime. If that was the case, we would have no crime. No, you do it by giving people alternatives, by giving them a sense of pride in their neighborhoods, by giving them something to fight for and to work for. We in the National Assembly have the money, we have the tools, and we have the political imagination to try something different than what other countries try to solve similar crimes. Our goal is to give the people a stake in their communities, by creating green spaces, community gardens, and city beautification, starting with demolishing these vacant buildings and denying crime a place to breed. Time will tell whether we were right. But I believe that the Blight Study underlined a problem we knew was brewing for a long time that has suddenly exploded into a crisis in Kalistani cities. Its time to act now before it gets worse, not just push the problem away."

The National Government has scheduled demolition of vacant and abandoned buildings in Addisjah to begin in June of this year.