At the same time, most other cities have also adopted this approach. Urban development does not seek space from the sky, but extends to the outside. This has also led to the fact that the urban areas of many cities are very large.
Of course, the reason for doing this back then was out of necessity.
Due to construction technical problems, it was impossible to build urban buildings too high back then. Even now, elevators are considered a new and expensive thing in Datang.
This building is not high-rise, and the population that can be accommodated per unit land area is relatively limited. As the city has more and more people, it has to develop towards the periphery.
At the same time, there is another more important reason.
That is, a considerable amount of land in cities and suburbs is actually in private hands. The government's efforts to push up housing prices have no benefit. The only ones who benefit are the landlords.
Therefore, many local governments have adopted the strategy of developing to the periphery, wherever it is easy to do things, and they will not limit their sights to this three-thirds of an acre of land.
It also has something to do with the fact that people in the Tang Dynasty liked to stay in the suburbs, even in the countryside.
The middle and upper class people of contemporary Tang Dynasty do not live in the city, but in the suburbs or even the countryside.
Many factors also led to the development of many cities in Datang to be of the flat development type.
Even Songjiang Mansion is like this!
The five million population of Songjiang Prefecture is not only concentrated in the core urban area, but is spread throughout Songjiang Prefecture.
But the previous flat development was the flat development of the city itself.
Now, the Tang Empire is pursuing flat development across the country, allowing various localities to develop their economies.
The meaning here is different.
Even Edward, an Englishman, could feel the effects of this flat development policy.
In the various Tang Dynasty newspapers he read every day, most of them could see the development of other places. For example, a company invested in a steel plant somewhere in the north and brought many jobs to the local area.
A certain meat products company set up a slaughterhouse in the northern grassland area, which not only provided jobs, but also allowed it to purchase a large number of livestock from local herders nearby.
In Songjiang Prefecture, he could see that basic living necessities such as food and clothing were very cheap, and there were also various other things. The variety and quantity made him speechless.
There seems to be nothing that cannot be bought in Songjiang Prefecture.
However, every time when he went shopping, Edward felt deeply that he was poor!
In his more than 20 years of life, this was the first time that Edward felt that he was so poor!
When he was in England, he was a son of a nobleman. Although he couldn't afford many things, he never felt poor because there were many poorer people around him.
How should I put it, in England, as a son of an aristocrat, although his assets were not much in Tang and Yuan dollars, he could still be considered a contemporary upper class person.
But after coming to Datang, he found that he was really poor!
The more than one hundred Tang Yuan his father gave him was quite a lot at first. It was a huge sum of money.
But gradually he felt that the more than one hundred Tang Yuan was not much. For example, he had never been to the restaurant on the passenger ship on the way here and could not afford to eat.
The items in the ship's shop were only a few necessities purchased for a few Tang Yuan.
It was like this when we were on the ship, and it became even more so after arriving in Shanghai.
Although it is said that food, accommodation and clothing in the embassy are free of charge and are supported by England's diplomatic funds, but if it is a personal expense, you have to pay for it yourself.
This month's salary of only five Tang Yuan is not much, and it will be used up just by selling something.
Especially recently, he has become obsessed with going to watch the North Shore team's football game. Even if he just buys the most ordinary ticket, it will cost two Tang Yuan to watch it.
His salary alone can only see two and a half games...
After he went to see it twice in a row, he never went again!
Can’t afford to go!
Although he still has more than 100 Tang Yuan in savings, he is an asset given to him by his father for his livelihood, and he does not dare to spend it arbitrarily.
In the end, after much deliberation, he still felt that his income was too low.
Wutang Yuan's monthly income, if it were in the London area, would be high-income, but in Songjiang Prefecture, this is just the minimum salary standard. If you randomly pick out any employed Tang people, their monthly salary is generally more than
Five Tang and Yuan Dynasties.
In fact, the current average salary of front-line industrial workers in Songjiang Prefecture is generally around seven or eight yuan.
Edward felt that he was too poor, so he began to think of ways to earn more income.
It is impossible to increase the salary. The monthly salary of Norris, the deputy minister, is only eight Tang Yuan...
He wanted to find other ways to earn more income.
He has been here for a long time and found that most people in the embassy area do not live on salary, and they more or less have income from other sources.
For example, Norris is a writer who writes books. A copy of "Tears of England" now brings him hundreds of dollars in royalties every year.
At the same time, when Norris returned to England, he also held a lecture tour, specifically talking about the Tang Dynasty!
This is all done for a fee, and you can earn at least hundreds of Tang Yuan from one event. The last time Norris returned to England, he held more than ten consecutive events in England and even across the strait in France and other places.
The lecture tour alone is worth at least a thousand Tang Yuan.
For example, there is a diplomatic entourage from the Ottoman Empire next door. He is a part-time musician who specializes in playing West Asian-style music. He goes to different hotels and other occasions to perform every three days. In this month, he has an income of more than ten yuan.
However, most of them still act as various brokers, liaising with the sources of goods for their domestic trading houses and nobles.
One of his colleagues works part-time as a consultant for more than a dozen commercial firms in England, specializing in purchasing various in-demand commodities in Datang for these firms, and his income is quite generous.
There are also people who act as translators or Tang language teachers.
In short, everyone has their own way to make extra money.
Edward is also deeply short of money now and wants to find some way to make money, but after thinking about it, he doesn't know many things.
In the end, we had no choice but to find Norris!
When Norris heard him say that he was short of money and wanted to find a way to make extra money, Norris thought for a moment and said: "I think your Tang Yuan is not very good. Although your spoken language is still a bit poor, your writing skills are still good."
Yes, we are recruiting translators in the embassy area. I will write you a letter of recommendation and you can try it. Although the income is not high, it can subsidize you to some extent."
After Edward found a job as a translator, he earned an extra three yuan of income every month, so he had a little more money.
But I still can’t go to football games frequently.