small shops supply all the staple foods , and general stores offer a variety of household goods . cheap clothing and furniture stores advertise goods on the instalment plan , and here also numerous shops devoted to repairs and to the sale of second-hand articles are to be found . this area has some of the oldest and lowest buildings in the parish , and one cheap cinema . its north-easterly tip abuts on the market of San Ildefonso whose parish was once an annexe of San Mart&amp;iacute;n , and it is full of busy taverns . 4 . Fuencarral : forms part of the municipal quarters of Mu&amp;ntilde;oz Torrero , San Luis , Jardines and Carmen . a predominant business and commercial activity marks this area of banks , offices , the central telephone exchange , and the type of shop which deals in manufactured goods such as radios , typewriters , office-equipment and shoes . dozens of tailors squat over their sewing in the upper storeys of old buildings and the side streets are studded with craftsmen &apos;s workshops and the comfortable family type of restaurant , notable for its kitchen rather than its prices . 5 . Luna - Desenga&amp;ntilde;o : belongs in parts to the municipal quarters of Estrella , Mu&amp;ntilde;oz Torrero and San Luis . this is the least definable area of all since its limits link up and merge with all others . most of its buildings are residential , but the four churches it contains also make it the centre of ecclesiastical influence . the population of Madrid has trebled in the last fifty years and continues to grow in an increasing proportion ; in 1958 it was estimated at 1,887,000 . this rise owes much to migration from the country districts , especially those of the south because of the fall in real wages . even in Madrid &apos;s own province the gain at the expense of the country areas was nearly 2,000 in 1956 . within the city itself , the birth rate has dropped by almost one-third over the same fifty years and , as in all the primate cities , was below the average of 23.43 per 1000 inhabitants in 1953 . urbanization in Spain generally is distinctly correlated with a fall in reproductive rates . in San Mart&amp;iacute;n the parish church declares that it is in contact with some 5,000 homes , but admits that the total population of the parish fluctuates between 25,000 and 30,000 . as the average size family is four or five , the overflow is taken up by approximately fifty hotels and 150 pensiones ( boarding houses ) . density figures of 847 ( 12 square metres per inhabitant ) show that the housing problem is acute , and San Mart&amp;iacute;n is , in fact , expanding upwards in the form of higher buildings . in the narrow back streets one commonly finds old houses whose bulging walls have been shored up by heavy timbers , often stretching beyond the pavement on to the road surface . when these finally topple the landlord is only too pleased , for the rents of pre-civil war tenants have been controlled and tenancy secured . although he must find alternative accommodation for his old tenants it need not be in the same area ; the loftier the new building , the higher the new rents , so that the previous occupier often has to move out of the parish . thus , the demographic changes induced by the double decline in births and deaths are linked to an increasingly rapid change in the composition of the parish population . money is ruthlessly finding its own level in housing , and as the wave of wealth sweeps from the Gran V&amp;iacute;a to trickle away into insignificance in the poorer areas of Pez , so those who can not enter the economic swim are driven farther away from the centre of the city and their traditional parish . two of the highest buildings in Europe now tower over the parish from the Gran V&amp;iacute;a area . these skyscrapers , full of offices , flats and hotels , are also a home from home for Americans who administer their military bases in Spain under the pact of 1952 ; they supply much employment to the local parishioners . the new pattern evolving , therefore , may roughly be explained in terms of a correlation between the height of the building and the income group and the degree of density of population in the parish . the two opposing poles of this correlation are the Gran V&amp;iacute;a and Pez areas , ten minutes &apos; stroll apart . there are no detached or semi-detached houses in this built-up parish ; and no front or back gardens . buildings form part of blocks whose rear may overlook communal courts . these are either mere wells criss-crossed with washing-lines from window to window , or more spacious ones used for commercial purposes , such as scrap-iron storage yards . a sense of neighbourhood is , therefore , enforced by the number of families crammed together in one building whose ground-floor tenant usually acts as porter and general informant . a certain privacy is ensured for households who have separate access to common landings or to a staircase , but the entrance is invariably overlooked by a porter &apos;s window . yet this modicum of privacy is being invaded by the increasing clamour for accommodation . more and more apartments are being created out of old reception rooms or spare bedrooms . humorists publish exaggerated cartoons in which even a large wardrobe or piano have been sub-let to the desperate homeless . few families are owners of the houses they live in , but many more have a long-term lease of the floor on which they reside . some of the ancient three-storeyed mansions , now converted into flats , have separate entrances and staircases for the use of owner and tenants . four-storeyed buildings of grey stone , with attics jutting out of red-tiled roofs , and railed balconies at the French windows of each floor , are still the most common in the residential areas . some of the tenement-houses have roof-terraces , access to which is usually a bone of contention . only the more modern and higher buildings have central heating and originally-planned bathrooms . on the hot summer nights the side streets are full of the chairs and stools of family groups until the cool breezes of early morning . for the privilege of living in this parish a working-class father in the older houses may pay as little as the equivalent of one United States dollar a month - a controlled rent ; but this is probably a sixteenth of his weekly income . rents which are uncontrolled may be as high as 2,000 pesetas a month or more . the sanctity of the home throughout Spain has never encouraged the casual Anglo-Saxon habit of dropping-in for unexpected visits . for a family of six , cramped in four rooms in Madrid , the enforced proximity of the neighbours scarcely permits the degree of self-imposed isolation which it would obviously prefer . even if it could get on the depressingly-long waiting lists of the state , syndicate or church housing projects in the suburbs , a typical family would be reluctant to move from the familiar parish area ; meanwhile it regards with a resigned surprise the restoration of ancient castles , and derives a mocking pleasure from the splendidly unfinished ministries and monuments begun by a display-minded regime . the feeling of belonging to the parish as an ecclesiastical unit consists in being a feligr&amp;eacute;s - a parishioner inscribed in the parish register . this entitles him to take advantage of the essential sacraments of baptism , marriage and extreme unction , and of the religious associations , charities and their services . official status as a vecino in the district is acquired by a minimum of six month &apos;s residence for all Spaniards of 21 or more , or for those of 18 or above who are legally living apart from their parents and are inscribed in the electoral census as heads of households . the municipal Padr&amp;oacute;n is the civil register of those liable to pay taxes within the Centro district . all those listed therein are required to carry an identity card with photograph and , if qualified for social insurance benefits , to acquire on marrying a family book from the so-called ministry of grace and justice . the difference between membership of the ecclesiastical and civil units can not be considered wholly in terms of the voluntary and the compulsory . except for an insignificant percentage of protestants , there is religious conformity within the parish , and social and religious obligations often dovetail ; for religion is not yet merely a personal affair , and the parish still exerts certain controls . these will be discussed in the next chapter , where an examination of the political structure of both church and state will reveal the authority and influence each wields . the aim of this chapter has been to paint the background and landscape of the Madrid picture . the subsequent pattern that will emerge will not be the comparatively regular one of the pueblo but , rather , a jigsaw of interlocking social relationships which merge their various forms and colours . 2 . the authorities and the world around . an authoritarian triad composed of mayor , police and priest , similar to that found in the village , exists in the city but in a more impersonal form , which only adds weight to its authority . it helps to create awareness of community among all who share a common mode of living in the district and parish , divisions which are themselves part of a nationally imposed political structure . for not even the rural parish is an autonomous , integrated whole wherein everything that happens is functionally interdependent , and the urban parish is much less so . San Mart&amp;iacute;n is at the heart of the nation &apos;s government ; and interaction between the superstructure of the capital as a whole and the local parish unit becomes clear only when the institutionalism of authority in general is examined . it is not my task here to go deeply into the historical causes of the existing system , or to evaluate the political structure . a distinction must , however , be drawn between that which is traditional and enduring and that which is the result of current political necessity . when , in the sixteenth century , the country quickly fell under a bureaucratic absolutism pride was lost in the provincial fueros , in municipal liberties , and in the rights of the Cortes of Castile . imperialism , Parry says , killed the best political thought in Spain . later , as an aftermath of the Napoleonic wars , the pendulum of government swung from reaction to counter-reaction . the political instability and internal strife reflected by the ninety-eight changes of cabinet between 1834 and 1912 - a period which saw revolutions , regents , pretenders , new monarchs , the first republic , military coups , a restoration , and the humiliating loss of the last of Spain &apos;s new world possessions - made the populace apathetic and destroyed its little faith in government . this is very quickly revealed in the parish by the reluctance to discuss the past , except that during which Spain was dominant in world affairs . past experience has not apparently deterred this people &apos;s search for heroic leaders rather than for an abstract political ideal ; the comparative success of two dictatorships and the failure of the second republic in this century might be adduced in support of this view if one were concerned with political theory . government in Spain continues to rest on the three institutions of an hereditary monarchy ( rejected by two short-lived republics ) , the parliament of the old Castilian Cortes , and an extensive civil service , with a permanent staff except for its highest officials . Spain is at the moment a kingdom without a king . the Franco regime has committed itself to the maintenance of the monarchy as an institution by the 1947 law of succession and the referendum of the following year . meanwhile the regime , in its own words , is a representative , organic democracy in which the individual participates in government through the natural representative organs of the family , the city council and the syndicate . of these three organs one - the family - has continued to participate through the parish in the election of another - the city council of Madrid - since the fourteenth century . syndicalism can be considered as a twentieth-century edition of the mediaeval gremios or trade guilds , which were themselves linked to both the family and the parish by their religious activities and the practice of spiritual sponsorship . it grew in the cities , not in the country areas , and was closely associated with anarchism in the past before the Falangists and catholics made it respectable in its current form of national verticalism . 