Haussmann was also blamed for the social disruption caused by his gigantic building projects. Thousands of families and businesses had to relocate when their buildings were demolished for the construction of the new boulevards. Haussmann was also blamed for the dramatic increase in rents, which increased by three hundred percent during the Second Empire, while wages, except for those of construction workers, remained flat, and blamed for the enormous amount of speculation in the real estate market. He was also blamed for reducing the amount of housing available for low income families, forcing low-income Parisians to move from the center to the outer neighborhoods of the city, where rents were lower. Statistics showed that the population of the first and sixth arrondissements, where some of the most densely populated neighborhoods were located, dropped, while the population of the new 17th and 20th arrondissements, on the edges of the city, grew rapidly.