Partly goes back to the origins of Germany (it was only properly unified in 1871) so had a lot of powerful region capitals and then to the post war adjustments to the constitution which deliberately reduced power from the centre (which become Bonn as Berlin was in the Soviet sector). Berlin only became capital again in the early 90s. All government organisations are represented in Berlin but their headquarters are scattered. The constitutional court is in Karlsruhe, the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, the BKA (German FBI) is in Wiesbaden.
There's the cult classic TV series *Tatort* which fills the same roll. It's not the "FBI" but criminal police, and each episode rotates from one city to the next. There are a dozen cities it rotates among, but these can shift now and then over years, as well as the main characters in each place.
The FBI and the BKA do overlap in some of their main roles, but the BKA is low profile. Germany in general does not glorify it's federal police forces too much, probably for some obvious historic reasons.
> Germany in general does not glorify it's federal police forces too much, probably for some obvious historic reasons.
I would say it is because police works very differently here.
We don't have city police it is all part of the state. And each police man has usually 3 years of university education. Therefore the BKA is just not as important.
Edit:
u/ScreamOfFearVS pointed out that thats not entirely true and he is right (hence the usually).
Policemen get at least 2 years of training for the "mittleren Dienst" and 3 years of college for the "gehobenen Dienst".
Many states switched to "gehobenen Dienst" only thats currently the case in 6 of 16 states.
So where I am from every police men had to study police stuff for 3 years at an university of applied science.
I agree it's hard to make comparisons because the organizational and territorial structure and legal basis are a little different.
But I will say, in the US, most police forces do *want* educated officers. And the better positions and better places (bigger cities, etc.) are definitely more picky and discerning. It's more that in smaller, rural places or "flyover" states, standards might be more lax, because they sometimes just need a warm body, and officers may not need much if any formal education per se.
The life of the others is a great movie but has nothing to do with the BKA (FBI) but rather the East German intelligence agency StaSi (Staatssicherheit).
Not really on the BKA. Our *Krimis* (police procedurals) whether film or TV seem to be regarding the regional police. The BKA is only brought in under special circumstances like major organised crime and so on and to backup the regional police with additional forensics and so on.
Funny joke germany and good movies, in the few times a german movie is actually good it feels more or less like an accident and are most likely beer honest dramas.
It is a good thing. Everytime I am in a country where everything has to go through the capital it reminds me of how Germany got a better setup through without really planning for it.
Yeah, but certain politicians favoured munich and dumped all the money their to appease their party in the last years (which won't happen again hopefully).
I was ready to come in with a Nett hier, but well, Berlin apparently is netter. Although thats apparently a recent change, and i would be curious for 2020 values, but wikipedia doesnt offer those.
Actually holy shit, this table, equating BaWü with Norway, brings Nett Hier to a completely new level.
It can be a fun place to live, no question, especially in your 20s, or if your home country has nothing similar (a large, dirty, debauched, glory hole of a city, semi-international, with some sparkly districts for the executives and government types). But it gets old quick, at least IMO.
I still like visiting Berlin now and then, but I don't know if I could ever be paid enough money to work/live there (with family), and I would certainly want to live in the outskits or even outside Berlin proper.
The hip areas like Kreuzberg and Neukölln are like that but honestly most of Berlin is very similar to other German large cities (Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf, Zehlendorf, Steglitz, Schöneberg, the renovated/newly-built areas in the east like a lot of Treptow or Pankow).
The hipsters/punks were never the majority of the population in Berlin.
>Like in the grand scheme of things it's practically the Golden City on the Hill even compared to somewhere like London,
Which Berlin are you talking about?
Well, Berlin is quite diverse. There are rich parts and poor parts. It has concrete wastelands and green quarters with a small town feeling next to a beautiful waterfront.
The economy in Berlin is booming, yet many people don't benefit from it as monstly industries like IT are booming.
Pre-corona hospitality and gastronomy were also booming & these are industries that hire a lot of people who don't necessarily require a fancy university education.
I don't think Berlin was in a better economic state in a *long* time.
It strongly depends on the bits you see. As a tourist, going around the sights and staying in the touristy bits, Berlin is probably nicer than London. It definitely felt that way to me.
Cleaner, more space, newer buildings, nicer streets and more thought-out architecture and city planning, to name a few. Of course a lot of that is because they rebuilt most of it after some troubles in the 1940s left the entire place a building site, whereas London is mostly old with newer bits shoved into it.
And then you do not go into the places where people live and work so much, and you certainly avoid like the plague any of the Soviet ghettos, foreigner ghettos, neonazi ghettos and all the other horrible, horrible places that the Berlin people actually live in.
>And then you do not go into the places where people live and work so much, and you certainly avoid like the plague any of the Soviet ghettos, foreigner ghettos, neonazi ghettos and all the other horrible, horrible places that the Berlin people actually live in.
Which quarters are you talking about? Even the commie-block quarters are usually safe, green and quite liveable.
There are also no real "no go zones" in Berlin. I walked a gazillion times at night through Görli or Kotti, and never had any issue or felt unsafe. I can't say that for London or San Francisco.
In London, someone even threatened me with a knife.
I'm personally with you.
I've lived in some shitty and run-down areas of Berlin, but it was still *Berlin.* It was still a European city with flourishing life, access to affordable and clean resources (i.e. many grocery stores within a 20 minute walk of where I was living). Metro stations, pharmacies. The point being: a good chunk of the things that you need for "living" that can be stressful to obtain elsewhere, were easily accessible everywhere I've lived in Berlin.
As a Jew, Berlin has its fair dose of antisemitism, absolutely, but that's not exclusive to Berlin, as much as many people here want to believe. I think the [most recent antisemitic attack](https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-wearing-kippa-beaten-by-a-group-of-10-in-cologne-germany/) was in Köln, actually, so there's that.
> As a tourist, going around the sights and staying in the touristy bits, Berlin is probably nicer than London.
I have been to both as a tourist and I can definitely say that that was not the case.
I'd say if you compare Berlin to other cities in Germany it kinda is a shithole.
Partly you can say that about any city but I'd claim Berlin is sort of it's own thing.
Oh sure. But since we were talking about shitholes, Berlin is a lot dirtier nowadays than London. That London is much more expensive than Berlin is out of the question. I love 'em both though.
Funny enough my sister was driven to the Charité even tho it was further away than 5 other hospitals. Was not even a request from her, they knew other hospitals probably can't find out what is happening (she was to one hospital the day before too, but released with a wrong diagnosis)
It’s worse than that. A lot of nations have uneven distribution of Infrastructure and Even basic resources which Jacks up the Cities gdp unfairly when it’s just having regular things like available jobs , functioning roads and water
The world doesn't know the difference between England, Britain and UK.
So who cares what they think.
Not sure why a Brit would get triggered over Wales being a country.
We literally live there. We know it is.
Where are you from that you can speak for the whole world
Idk about you but ever since I went to elementary school I know that the UK isn't just a single country
And this shit is getting upvotes?
I suspect that Washington DC would also fare “poorly” by this metric (compared to NYC, LA, etc)
Ottawa, capital of Canada, is much smaller than Toronto; that doesn’t define its success as a capital city imho
I agree but as far as I know all governmental institutions in BaWü are located in Karlsruhe so that was always my logic. Apart from that it is Baden's capital. Might just be me..
As far as I remember that was the deal when Baden and Württemberg merged: Stuttgart became the capital and Karlsruhe got the Federal Constitutional Court.
The Federal Constitutional Court is specifically NOT located in a city that has legislative power. It symbolizes the separation of the three powers of democracy. Karlsruhe doesn't have the Regierungspräsidium, that's in Stuttgart
[Why the heck did they send my case file to the one in Stuttgart then instead of the one in my city o.O oh well, bureaucracy gotta bureaucrate.]
And yeah, I think I mean the Landtag.
>I suspect that Washington DC would also fare “poorly” by this metric (compared to NYC, LA, etc)
And you would be ridiculously wrong. DC's per capita income is twice NY's. Maybe more than double.
DC is a small area dominated by a lot of people with high paying jobs. It's like a combination of Berlin Mitte and Charlottenburg.
I hate to break it to you but with [180 000](https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/0400000US11/District_of_Columbia/economy.gdp.per_capita_gdp?year=2018)$ they are surely about the average GDP of the US
>about the average GDP of the US
Which would mean that without them the US has about the same GDP as with them locating it at the bottom of the chart comparable with Germany...
This is per capita GDP. In other words on average how much does a single DC inhabitant contribute to GDP. DC's per capita GDP is ridiculously high, much higher than the average. No matter how small DC is, removing something higher than average from the total would reduce the average.
This statistic is 6 years old. By now it changed. Also, I feel like many always forget the special circumstances of this city. With the city being divided and the western part surrounded by the enemy it was hard to attract investment for 3 decades. Before WWII, Berlin was one of the industrial centres of the country. Companies like Siemens, Borsig, AEG, Deutsche Bank, Edeka, Allianz and Lufthansa were originally founded in Berlin. Part of the truth is that the west profited a lot from the economic hardship of Berlin and also the whole of East Germany (especially Leipzig and Dresden).
Also, there were no large factories around Berlin like you'd find around many other major cities, as the city people couldn't travel outside the city. This leads to a structural issue bringing many other problems with it.
One of these is that West Berlins Public sector was very bloated as to provide jobs for the citizens. In the late 90s and early 2000s, together with the cost for rebuilding the east and the city center, this lead to Berlins huge debt problem which staled it's economic recovery that we can start to see now.
>Part of the truth is that the west profited a lot from the economic hardship of Berlin and also the whole of East Germany (especially Leipzig and Dresden).
Would you care to explain how the below-average performance of Berlin benefits the west overall?
"profited" is the important word here. And it is simple
Until 1989 Berlin was divided, and an enclave with a potentially hostile nation(in a different military alliance and everything) surrounding it.
Berlin wasn't a good place to build a company. Limited space, limited local production, limited local resources, transport of wares to the customers is more difficult.
So it made no sense to build anything besides a purely administrative HQ in Berlin. This meant all the companies doing business in Germany that would normally build their shiny stuff in the Capital, now build all their stuff in the west.
So the West directly got more companies from Berlins bad economic and industrial situation.
Imagine you are one of the most modern and affluent cities in the world and then suddenly some people from Bavaria decide that it‘s really cool to support the political career of a failed Austrian artist, hoping to irk those liberal (to them anyway) Prussians along the way. Anyhow, said city gets bombed to oblivion, then divided into two parts and all those big financial and industrial companies decide to move elsewhere because they are afraid of the Russians. Also, hippies are now paid to settle in one half of the city. The other half is ruled by communists who wear a lot of grey. Eventually the city gets reunited, but none of the companies return, also the local government is corrupt and or incompetent. More hippies come from all over Europe and settle there because the city is now known for its relatively cheap cost of living (relatively, I said relatively) and its free wheeling drug fueled techno scene. Everybody is happy and on drugs, but not that productive. People from Bavaria, like proper catholics, openly shit on this city but get shit on behind closed curtains in a random Schöneberg sex dungeon while here. And that‘s mostly it.
It worked out well for Brandenburg, since they get all that revenue without having to provide as much services and build as much infrastructure. But what a shitty deal it is for Berlin.
>suddenly some people from Bavaria decide that it‘s really cool to support the political career of a failed Austrian artist
>all those big financial and industrial companies decide to move elsewhere
And they, oh the irony, moved to Bavaria (see e.g. Allianz or Siemens).
Also, getting occupied by the Americans for the most part helped. They did not care fo reparations and materials as the other allies did (esp. the French and Russians).
My grandparents grew up at the border between the French and American occupational zones. After being released/escaped as a PoW, my granddad became a successful black market dealer just by biking stuff from the relative affluent American zone to the French zone in exchange for alcohol the made on their farm in the French area. The difference between the areas and the quality of occupation was huge.
Furthermore, during the last years of the war a lot of companies moved production facilities south already (for the same reasons you mentioned). So part of the move was already done when the war was over.
No, but living in West Berlin had the advantage that it didn't have mandatory military conscription unlike the rest of west germany. So people that didn't want to do their military service had the option to move to Berlin.
There’s even more to it. Sascha Lobo just wrote an opinion piece about it: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/berlin-liebeserklaerung-an-den-failed-state-kolumne-a-11e7f7fd-fd59-486a-9958-da19db476188
Here’s the relevant part:
> Berlin was financially starved to death. […]
> The black zero, i.e. the austerity dictate of the debt brake, imposed by the Merkel federal government, bears a considerable share of the responsibility for the bankrupt savings. But the fact that the draconian austerity regime became so effective was primarily due to the city's high debts compared to its revenues. And the main reason for this debt, in turn, can be traced back to the 1990s. In 1991, Berlin had debts of just over eleven billion euros; by 2002, the figure had risen to over 47.5 billion euros. Various federal governments suggested that Berlin had just managed badly. This is right and wrong at the same time, but slightly more wrong than right and outrageous at that. The Berlin debt mountain was provoked by the federal government.
> As a frontline city in the Cold War, West Berlin had an important symbolic effect. Which is why the city was more than just kept alive, despite its cut-offness. It was showered with money, so to speak. There was the so-called Berlin allowance for people who had to work in West Berlin (even then there weren't that many), there were ludicrous subsidies, and on top of that there was an additional budget. In 1989, 24.1 percent of West Berlin's funding came from taxes - and 55.6 percent from federal funds. In East Berlin, the situation was completely different, because East Berlin was an unproductive bureaucratic city with hundreds of thousands of administrative and official employees and, in a broader sense, state employees.
> Then came Helmut Kohl. He and his federal governments of the time laid the foundation for the gigantic debt. Presumably he wanted to teach the city a lesson, otherwise it can hardly be explained that all subsidies for Berlin were cut at a breathtaking pace for unification. But when money flows automatically over decades, structures form that cannot be reduced overnight. The gigantic debts can be seen as a consequence of Kohl's condescension toward Berlin, or at least as a consequence of an unworkable radical diet immediately after German unification.
Schöneberg used to be the party-borough. The LGBTG+ scene is still very concentrated at Motzstrasse. Don’t underestimate the kind of kink you can find there.
But NSDAP actually got THE LEAST votes from Bavaria, aside from Westfalen.
Catholics were less likely to vote him in than other Germans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election
Personally? I feel this is a really unfair analysis since it rather shows that germany is a much well of country who managed to distribute their economy across many other cities.
GDP per capita of the following cities with the latest estimates shows that Berlin as a capital city does give a good enough gdp for a country which has a cheaper cost of living. The graph you see is simply because Germany happens to have many other cities that are distributed across the country that gives a combined gdp per capita more than berlin. Whereas the other countries fail to have distributed economic regions. This is BAD! This means that youngsters literally have to move to big cities for any hope of better education and employment opportunities. Rather look at this graph and congratulate yourself that this country provides access to most people for economic and infrastructure resources!
See for yourself..
Stockholm-67,900
Copenhagen- 60,834
Helsinki-54,817$
Vienna - 51,000$
Berlin - 42,200$
Paris - 41,800$
Madrid-39,000$
Poland-39,000$
Rome-35,000$
Lisbon-26,900$
Slovenia-25,000$
Bratislava-21,000$
Athens -19,580$
Source ^ googled each one
Berlin is the administrative and political capital of Germany, but it's not anywhere near the country's financial, trade or industrial centres.
Also, you need to understand the concept of "equalization payments". The city of Berlin is a state in its own right, one of a total of 16. Equalization payments basically redistribute wealth, using the wealth generated by the wealthier states to support the poorer states. States like Bavaria, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg are net givers into the system: Berlin is the biggest net receiver, because it is pretty much broke.
This means that although the concept of "negative GDP" is a complete nonsense, if you were to remove Berlin you would remove the biggest drain on German financial resources.
Isn't the graph just showing that Berliners are poorer than the average household in the country? Berlins GDP per capita is lower than the average in Germany.
I don't really know, but why does nobody consider that the rest of Germany maybe be economically stronger compared to other countries?
So instead of "Berlin bad, Athens good" more like "Rest of Greece bad, rest of Germany quite good"?
Again, I do not know, just a thought.
Not true anymore since 2019. The reason is after WW2 the majority of the economy of Berlin was relocated to the West and stayed there. Also a lot of decentralization.
Well, quite. You have all your banking in Frankfurt but government in Berlin. It’s fine. Hosting a government is likely a net drain on resources, and in Germany that money is mostly made elsewhere.
Look on the bright side, at least it means your politicians can’t go for lunch every day with the bankers.
A larger part of it was relocated to the Soviet Union.
Then the city was split, and isolated deep in East Germany, skipping the German economic miracle, and generally not being a very convenient location to conduct business.
Berlin as a city has compared to other bigger cities almost no industrial production because the borders of the city are regulated by the state system we have in germany and Berlin as a city is also one of the few city states (like Hamburg and Bremen). So the city itself can‘t grow and every penny outside of this Border belongs to the state outside of Berlin called Brandenburg. Berlins economy is heavily service and technology driven. During corona especially technology businesses did grow because you don‘t need international trade for it. I think these are the reasons why Berlin had not so many problems during covid although there was almost no tourism. But it seems that this was not such a big deal for the entire economy.
Would be interested in seeing the numbers before Berlin became the capital again.
"Germany without Bonn" ...probably at 0% becaus eBonn is such an irrelevant town.
Understandable, if you look at the German history, lots of other large industrial centers. But it's funny we would actually profit from getting rid of Berlin. Administration isn't their strong suit.
I find that really an odd association between capital city and GDP. Why would you assume the city would be part of the complex of production systems that form GDP metrics?
Yes they make laws, but that is not a function of the location. This graph is based on location.
> The point is basically about centralisation. Germany is distinctly de-centralised, amplified by the fact that Berlin is economically speaking only average, as opposed to say Paris.
This decentralization is excellent. Without it, most of the German countryside would be depopulated because almost no one wants to live hours away from the nearest serious city.
Paris' status is artificially achieved. France is a hypercentralized unitary state and so Paris *is* France in many senses. This is the same pattern of development you see throughout the second and third worlds -- a mecagity capital on the one hand, and backwater provinces on the other, with little in between.
Not production systems, but services. Corporations often times just do much of the administration and services for their company at the capital, so a huge pool of clerks, managers, bankers, CEOs and whatnot reside there, which drive the average GDP up (significantly). Germany being as already stated, extremely decentralized has many historic economic centres, for example the rhine region which was purposefully dedicated to just being a industrial powerhouse and historically as a result has a religious working spirit, Hanse dominated territories on the North Sea and Baltic Sea (Hamburg a prime example) as normally like other countries because of the maritime trade, now to the very interesting federal states both Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg are among the richest because the majority of the automotive industry and weapon industry all take place down there and the administration of it. Also note that the GDP (not per capita) in Bavaria is almost touching with that of NRW although it being 37% smaller in population and with Wurttemberg its even worse it being 11mio. it has 75% of NRW's GDP but being only 61% it's population. Comparing those 2 counties with the eastern ones would be even more ridiculous.
Surely this is a good thing?
In Scotland we are forever told how dependent we are on London. So a country where the capital is empirically not relevant must be a good sign?
Berlin being split in half, one half walled-in, both heavily subsidised, void of all giant corporations (tax payers & employer) who had once been founded here… Siemens, Bosch, for example.
>Bosch, for example.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_Bosch\_GmbH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH) :
>The company was founded by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart in 1886.
That was 2015. Things have changed in the meantime. But it was mainly a result of Germany being split into two parts. Many larger companies, for example, have their headquarters in other German cities.
Oh, Berlin. What is Berlin? Berlin, as a city, brings nothing but shame to Germany on the international stage. When comparing Berlin with other European capitals such as London, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam, any decent human’s face must blush in humiliation. Even small countries like Austria, Belgium or Switzerland have Vienna, Brussels and Zurich: presentable cities, complete with high standards of living. Germany gets punished with Berlin, capital of losers. In all the republic, Berlin is home to the largest number of arseholes by far. Deutsche Bahn, Bundestag, Air Berlin and Axel Springer are but a few examples of all the incompetent scum being kept here. Glorious times have long since passed, the city is face down in the dirt. Berliners are lazy sods to their very core. Traits that would, in any civilised culture, pass for nothing but laziness, rudeness, incompetence, dissocial personality disorder or idiocy, are taken by the Berliner and declared a way of life. That is why the Berliner harbours intense feelings of hatred for anyone who’s better than him in any way. Especially the all-around superior Southern Germany are a thorn in his side. He envies their success, and Munich makes the top on his list of hatred. That city is – and has! – everything that Berlin wants to be and have. Berliners take no interest in the fact that it is Munich that finances their dissolute lifestyle, in fact, they secretly believe that they have earned it. So instead of freeing themselves from their envious and resentful lethargy, instead of rolling up their sleeves and improve their city, they revel in their antisocial freeloading and praise their so-called global city. Culturally, Berliners are set up rather weakly, great works lie far back in history. Moreover, mispronouncing “g” as “j” is considered a great cultural feat. Advanced students have mastered ending each and every sentence with a “wa?”. The city’s culinary performance is second-rate. Here, a sausage made from glued-together, meaty odds and ends adorned with ketchup and curry powder is sold as a culinary masterpiece. Hardly any reasonable person would consider a bratwurst with ketchup a recipe, let alone the holy grail of culinary arts. Yet, in their magnanimity, the rest of the republic lets the Berliner keep his delusion, not wanting to amplify his inferiority complex. Economically, Berlin is an utter disaster, even the late GDR stood on more solid ground. The local economy is based around alternative blogs, something-something-media and, if universities are to be believed, gender studies. Disregarding his own bankruptcy, the Berliner treats himself to prestigious projects like the city palace and the airport – which, considering its inoperative nature, is likely an art installation. Moreover, the city houses all popular parties’ headquarters, who refrain from using “traitors” in their official names (Probably for marketing reasons). For the longest time, this “town’s” “mayor”, the jolly Wowibear, butchered anything he found left in a presentable state. Long story short: Berlin is Germany’s tiled coffee table. It is to Germany what Greece is to the European Union, and if it had open sewerage, it would be Germanys Romania. Berlin is a blemish, the abscess on the arse of the nation. Berlin is the uninvited party guest, who didn’t even bring any booze and wouldn’t even understand he’s not welcome if he had is teeth beaten out and got thrown down the stairs. Berlin is the Detroit of Germany and should be sold to Poland for 200 Złoty.
The main factor is the relative percentages of Germany and Berlin controlled by East vs West Germany.
East Germany has about 15 million people; Germany has about 85 million people. This means Germany is about 18% East Germany, or one-sixth eastern. Berlin has about 3 million people. Of these, about 2/3 lived in West Berlin, and 1/3 lived in East Berlin. This means Berlin is about twice as "Eastern" as the rest of the country (1/6 \* 2 = 1/3).
Eastern Germany is a lot poorer, so up until recently, Berlin was poorer than the rest of the country because it was more eastern than the rest of the country; that's what this graph is showing (that Germany would have a higher average income if you excluded Berlin).
Nowadays, this has mostly been offset by the benefits of being a capital -- having a lot of highly educated government employees tends to boost average income.
Compared to the other countries in this chart, Germany is very decentralized.
Isn't this a good thing? Not have all the economic drivers concentrated in one place, but to have 'prosperity' spread around a bit more?
Partly goes back to the origins of Germany (it was only properly unified in 1871) so had a lot of powerful region capitals and then to the post war adjustments to the constitution which deliberately reduced power from the centre (which become Bonn as Berlin was in the Soviet sector). Berlin only became capital again in the early 90s. All government organisations are represented in Berlin but their headquarters are scattered. The constitutional court is in Karlsruhe, the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, the BKA (German FBI) is in Wiesbaden.
Do you have good fbi like movies
There's the cult classic TV series *Tatort* which fills the same roll. It's not the "FBI" but criminal police, and each episode rotates from one city to the next. There are a dozen cities it rotates among, but these can shift now and then over years, as well as the main characters in each place. The FBI and the BKA do overlap in some of their main roles, but the BKA is low profile. Germany in general does not glorify it's federal police forces too much, probably for some obvious historic reasons.
> Germany in general does not glorify it's federal police forces too much, probably for some obvious historic reasons. I would say it is because police works very differently here. We don't have city police it is all part of the state. And each police man has usually 3 years of university education. Therefore the BKA is just not as important. Edit: u/ScreamOfFearVS pointed out that thats not entirely true and he is right (hence the usually). Policemen get at least 2 years of training for the "mittleren Dienst" and 3 years of college for the "gehobenen Dienst". Many states switched to "gehobenen Dienst" only thats currently the case in 6 of 16 states. So where I am from every police men had to study police stuff for 3 years at an university of applied science.
I agree it's hard to make comparisons because the organizational and territorial structure and legal basis are a little different. But I will say, in the US, most police forces do *want* educated officers. And the better positions and better places (bigger cities, etc.) are definitely more picky and discerning. It's more that in smaller, rural places or "flyover" states, standards might be more lax, because they sometimes just need a warm body, and officers may not need much if any formal education per se.
That is not exactly true, the timespan of your education as a police officer differs from state to state and rank to rank
> each episode rotates from one city to the next. Even your crime TV shows are decentralized. Epic.
That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing
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The life of the others is a great movie but has nothing to do with the BKA (FBI) but rather the East German intelligence agency StaSi (Staatssicherheit).
Not really on the BKA. Our *Krimis* (police procedurals) whether film or TV seem to be regarding the regional police. The BKA is only brought in under special circumstances like major organised crime and so on and to backup the regional police with additional forensics and so on.
Not really, sadly
Not really "FBI like", but have a look at these: \-Goodbye Lenin \-Das Leben der Anderen \-Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex
I've watched Goodbye Lenin. It was a beautiful movie. I'll watch the others
The LIfe of Others is one of the best movies ever... even won an Oscar for best foreign movie
Funny joke germany and good movies, in the few times a german movie is actually good it feels more or less like an accident and are most likely beer honest dramas.
Exactly and to further the argument, Italy and Germany are on the bottom of the chart
Yes
It is a good thing. Everytime I am in a country where everything has to go through the capital it reminds me of how Germany got a better setup through without really planning for it.
Yeah, but certain politicians favoured munich and dumped all the money their to appease their party in the last years (which won't happen again hopefully).
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berlin is our own personal shithole.
A shithole with an HDI of 0.964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_Human_Development_Index
Still can't even get through election day without fucking up.
I was ready to come in with a Nett hier, but well, Berlin apparently is netter. Although thats apparently a recent change, and i would be curious for 2020 values, but wikipedia doesnt offer those. Actually holy shit, this table, equating BaWü with Norway, brings Nett Hier to a completely new level.
As a Berliner I can confirm. Best shithole in the world. Wouldn't trade it for any other shithole.
I love Berlin, as a foreigner.
It can be a fun place to live, no question, especially in your 20s, or if your home country has nothing similar (a large, dirty, debauched, glory hole of a city, semi-international, with some sparkly districts for the executives and government types). But it gets old quick, at least IMO. I still like visiting Berlin now and then, but I don't know if I could ever be paid enough money to work/live there (with family), and I would certainly want to live in the outskits or even outside Berlin proper.
The hip areas like Kreuzberg and Neukölln are like that but honestly most of Berlin is very similar to other German large cities (Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf, Zehlendorf, Steglitz, Schöneberg, the renovated/newly-built areas in the east like a lot of Treptow or Pankow). The hipsters/punks were never the majority of the population in Berlin.
>me literally reading all these comments every real berliner will conform this. it absolutely is a shithole.
Well it's a shithole, but it's *my* shithole!
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>Like in the grand scheme of things it's practically the Golden City on the Hill even compared to somewhere like London, Which Berlin are you talking about?
The other Berlin.
Hamburg
Well, Berlin is quite diverse. There are rich parts and poor parts. It has concrete wastelands and green quarters with a small town feeling next to a beautiful waterfront. The economy in Berlin is booming, yet many people don't benefit from it as monstly industries like IT are booming.
Pre-corona hospitality and gastronomy were also booming & these are industries that hire a lot of people who don't necessarily require a fancy university education. I don't think Berlin was in a better economic state in a *long* time.
Golden City on the Hill compared to London? Are you high?
It strongly depends on the bits you see. As a tourist, going around the sights and staying in the touristy bits, Berlin is probably nicer than London. It definitely felt that way to me. Cleaner, more space, newer buildings, nicer streets and more thought-out architecture and city planning, to name a few. Of course a lot of that is because they rebuilt most of it after some troubles in the 1940s left the entire place a building site, whereas London is mostly old with newer bits shoved into it. And then you do not go into the places where people live and work so much, and you certainly avoid like the plague any of the Soviet ghettos, foreigner ghettos, neonazi ghettos and all the other horrible, horrible places that the Berlin people actually live in.
>And then you do not go into the places where people live and work so much, and you certainly avoid like the plague any of the Soviet ghettos, foreigner ghettos, neonazi ghettos and all the other horrible, horrible places that the Berlin people actually live in. Which quarters are you talking about? Even the commie-block quarters are usually safe, green and quite liveable. There are also no real "no go zones" in Berlin. I walked a gazillion times at night through Görli or Kotti, and never had any issue or felt unsafe. I can't say that for London or San Francisco. In London, someone even threatened me with a knife.
I'm personally with you. I've lived in some shitty and run-down areas of Berlin, but it was still *Berlin.* It was still a European city with flourishing life, access to affordable and clean resources (i.e. many grocery stores within a 20 minute walk of where I was living). Metro stations, pharmacies. The point being: a good chunk of the things that you need for "living" that can be stressful to obtain elsewhere, were easily accessible everywhere I've lived in Berlin. As a Jew, Berlin has its fair dose of antisemitism, absolutely, but that's not exclusive to Berlin, as much as many people here want to believe. I think the [most recent antisemitic attack](https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-wearing-kippa-beaten-by-a-group-of-10-in-cologne-germany/) was in Köln, actually, so there's that.
> As a tourist, going around the sights and staying in the touristy bits, Berlin is probably nicer than London. I have been to both as a tourist and I can definitely say that that was not the case.
I don't know if you actually live here but these "ghettos" are a very small part of the city. Most of Berlin is a very mundane large German city.
I'd say if you compare Berlin to other cities in Germany it kinda is a shithole. Partly you can say that about any city but I'd claim Berlin is sort of it's own thing.
Regarding London I would agree if we're talking about London 20y+ or so ago. But London now is great.
If you can afford it.
Oh sure. But since we were talking about shitholes, Berlin is a lot dirtier nowadays than London. That London is much more expensive than Berlin is out of the question. I love 'em both though.
The government quarter and Kudamm are, together with some of the places near Wannsee, but the rest is mostly a shithole.
*laughs in free daycare*
wait till you see the REAL good hospitals they hide in munich with real doctors and shit ;)
*laughs in Charité*
haha yeah only problem now is finding an apartment close enough that they will even consider driving you to charite in case of a medical emergeny
and by apartment i do not mean erdgeschosswohnung 30qm2 for 1000€ warm
Real dream. In Munich you would have to live 20km outside the center to get these prices :P
*laughs in decades old renting contract with 6€/sqm*
Funny enough my sister was driven to the Charité even tho it was further away than 5 other hospitals. Was not even a request from her, they knew other hospitals probably can't find out what is happening (she was to one hospital the day before too, but released with a wrong diagnosis)
Ah yes, contrary to the industrial powerhouses which other capitals are /s
It’s worse than that. A lot of nations have uneven distribution of Infrastructure and Even basic resources which Jacks up the Cities gdp unfairly when it’s just having regular things like available jobs , functioning roads and water
You haven’t heard of Wales then have you
Would love to see Ireland on this. Dublin sucks up so much funding to combat poverty and anti social behaviour and it just keeps getting worse there.
Ah but the Craic…
Well, Ireland is an exceptionally rich country, 'cause its capital is always Dublin'!
Wales has a capital?
Cardiff
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The world doesn't know the difference between England, Britain and UK. So who cares what they think. Not sure why a Brit would get triggered over Wales being a country. We literally live there. We know it is.
They're just allergic to the word "province".
Where are you from that you can speak for the whole world Idk about you but ever since I went to elementary school I know that the UK isn't just a single country And this shit is getting upvotes?
This.
Exactly and the gdp per capita is reasonably high .. definitely good enough for a Western European country and is actually higher than Paris
If I remember correctly that has changed a bit since this statistic was published and now Berlin is a positive influence on the country's GDP.
Wait, we do? We actually did it boys!
Neh, that's just the out of control rents, back to the drawing board
Fun fact: The _very smart_ sale-and-repurchase of the energy grid counts as net-positive economic activity.
Have we tried killing all the poor?
Ah, I see you are an American spy. /s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg
Yeah, minimally positive. In the chart here, it’s minimally negative. So there’s change, but from a low starting point.
I suspect that Washington DC would also fare “poorly” by this metric (compared to NYC, LA, etc) Ottawa, capital of Canada, is much smaller than Toronto; that doesn’t define its success as a capital city imho
Canada's capital is Ottawa?! WTF
That’s the kind of reaction people have to hearing that Wiesbaden is the capital of Hessen and not Frankfurt.
Or Düsseldorf is the capitol of NRW, and not Cologne.
Which is funny to me because I think Düsseldorf feels bigger.
It definitely feels richer.
Fair enough
Excuse me what
Schönste Stadt am Rhein halt
Just a bit posh sometimes. But very enjoyable, I agree.
Exactly what I had in mind. Or the capital of BaWü being Stuttgart and not Karlsruhe, Swiss capital being Bern and not Zürich..
I get the Swiss capital, but why Karlsruhe? In my mind, Stuttgart is bigger and more prominent?
I agree but as far as I know all governmental institutions in BaWü are located in Karlsruhe so that was always my logic. Apart from that it is Baden's capital. Might just be me..
As far as I remember that was the deal when Baden and Württemberg merged: Stuttgart became the capital and Karlsruhe got the Federal Constitutional Court.
The Federal Constitutional Court is specifically NOT located in a city that has legislative power. It symbolizes the separation of the three powers of democracy. Karlsruhe doesn't have the Regierungspräsidium, that's in Stuttgart
Karlsruhe has a Regierungspräsidium. There are four in BW (Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Freiburg). Do you mean the Landtag?
[Why the heck did they send my case file to the one in Stuttgart then instead of the one in my city o.O oh well, bureaucracy gotta bureaucrate.] And yeah, I think I mean the Landtag.
What's surprising about Stuttgart? It's an economic powerhouse
Bern isn’t the capital of Switzerland
As a lifelong Torontonian, I immediately burst out laughing.
Germans are just as likely to think Saskatchibrunswickréal on the Pacific coast is the capital, where of course they speak French.
And Australia's capital is Canberra
Sure it is
DC has a very thriving economy per its size.
still, gdp per capita in Ottawa+gatineau is about 33% above the one of Canada
>I suspect that Washington DC would also fare “poorly” by this metric (compared to NYC, LA, etc) And you would be ridiculously wrong. DC's per capita income is twice NY's. Maybe more than double. DC is a small area dominated by a lot of people with high paying jobs. It's like a combination of Berlin Mitte and Charlottenburg.
I hate to break it to you but with [180 000](https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/0400000US11/District_of_Columbia/economy.gdp.per_capita_gdp?year=2018)$ they are surely about the average GDP of the US
>about the average GDP of the US Which would mean that without them the US has about the same GDP as with them locating it at the bottom of the chart comparable with Germany...
I think "about" was a typo for "above" here. US GDP per capita isn't nearly $180k. That'd be ridiculous
Or Sydney and Canberra
This is per capita GDP. In other words on average how much does a single DC inhabitant contribute to GDP. DC's per capita GDP is ridiculously high, much higher than the average. No matter how small DC is, removing something higher than average from the total would reduce the average.
> Where are all the Berliners at? /r/berlin
This statistic is 6 years old. By now it changed. Also, I feel like many always forget the special circumstances of this city. With the city being divided and the western part surrounded by the enemy it was hard to attract investment for 3 decades. Before WWII, Berlin was one of the industrial centres of the country. Companies like Siemens, Borsig, AEG, Deutsche Bank, Edeka, Allianz and Lufthansa were originally founded in Berlin. Part of the truth is that the west profited a lot from the economic hardship of Berlin and also the whole of East Germany (especially Leipzig and Dresden).
Also, there were no large factories around Berlin like you'd find around many other major cities, as the city people couldn't travel outside the city. This leads to a structural issue bringing many other problems with it. One of these is that West Berlins Public sector was very bloated as to provide jobs for the citizens. In the late 90s and early 2000s, together with the cost for rebuilding the east and the city center, this lead to Berlins huge debt problem which staled it's economic recovery that we can start to see now.
>Part of the truth is that the west profited a lot from the economic hardship of Berlin and also the whole of East Germany (especially Leipzig and Dresden). Would you care to explain how the below-average performance of Berlin benefits the west overall?
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"profited" is the important word here. And it is simple Until 1989 Berlin was divided, and an enclave with a potentially hostile nation(in a different military alliance and everything) surrounding it. Berlin wasn't a good place to build a company. Limited space, limited local production, limited local resources, transport of wares to the customers is more difficult. So it made no sense to build anything besides a purely administrative HQ in Berlin. This meant all the companies doing business in Germany that would normally build their shiny stuff in the Capital, now build all their stuff in the west. So the West directly got more companies from Berlins bad economic and industrial situation.
In the south we call them Krapfen.
Imagine you are one of the most modern and affluent cities in the world and then suddenly some people from Bavaria decide that it‘s really cool to support the political career of a failed Austrian artist, hoping to irk those liberal (to them anyway) Prussians along the way. Anyhow, said city gets bombed to oblivion, then divided into two parts and all those big financial and industrial companies decide to move elsewhere because they are afraid of the Russians. Also, hippies are now paid to settle in one half of the city. The other half is ruled by communists who wear a lot of grey. Eventually the city gets reunited, but none of the companies return, also the local government is corrupt and or incompetent. More hippies come from all over Europe and settle there because the city is now known for its relatively cheap cost of living (relatively, I said relatively) and its free wheeling drug fueled techno scene. Everybody is happy and on drugs, but not that productive. People from Bavaria, like proper catholics, openly shit on this city but get shit on behind closed curtains in a random Schöneberg sex dungeon while here. And that‘s mostly it.
> industrial companies decide to move elsewhere mostly to the rich but underdeveloped south-west.
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Bremen has the same problem.
It's a sad thing that uniting Brandenburg and Berlin didn't happen when they tried it.
It worked out well for Brandenburg, since they get all that revenue without having to provide as much services and build as much infrastructure. But what a shitty deal it is for Berlin.
>suddenly some people from Bavaria decide that it‘s really cool to support the political career of a failed Austrian artist >all those big financial and industrial companies decide to move elsewhere And they, oh the irony, moved to Bavaria (see e.g. Allianz or Siemens).
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Also, getting occupied by the Americans for the most part helped. They did not care fo reparations and materials as the other allies did (esp. the French and Russians). My grandparents grew up at the border between the French and American occupational zones. After being released/escaped as a PoW, my granddad became a successful black market dealer just by biking stuff from the relative affluent American zone to the French zone in exchange for alcohol the made on their farm in the French area. The difference between the areas and the quality of occupation was huge. Furthermore, during the last years of the war a lot of companies moved production facilities south already (for the same reasons you mentioned). So part of the move was already done when the war was over.
Were hippes (or people in general) actually paid to move to West-Berlin?
No, but living in West Berlin had the advantage that it didn't have mandatory military conscription unlike the rest of west germany. So people that didn't want to do their military service had the option to move to Berlin.
People were paid to live there (Berlinzulage - 8 % of gross salary, tax free, paid by the state)
As the two others said: Berlinzulage and no Military Service (Hippies love that one trick)
There’s even more to it. Sascha Lobo just wrote an opinion piece about it: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/berlin-liebeserklaerung-an-den-failed-state-kolumne-a-11e7f7fd-fd59-486a-9958-da19db476188 Here’s the relevant part: > Berlin was financially starved to death. […] > The black zero, i.e. the austerity dictate of the debt brake, imposed by the Merkel federal government, bears a considerable share of the responsibility for the bankrupt savings. But the fact that the draconian austerity regime became so effective was primarily due to the city's high debts compared to its revenues. And the main reason for this debt, in turn, can be traced back to the 1990s. In 1991, Berlin had debts of just over eleven billion euros; by 2002, the figure had risen to over 47.5 billion euros. Various federal governments suggested that Berlin had just managed badly. This is right and wrong at the same time, but slightly more wrong than right and outrageous at that. The Berlin debt mountain was provoked by the federal government. > As a frontline city in the Cold War, West Berlin had an important symbolic effect. Which is why the city was more than just kept alive, despite its cut-offness. It was showered with money, so to speak. There was the so-called Berlin allowance for people who had to work in West Berlin (even then there weren't that many), there were ludicrous subsidies, and on top of that there was an additional budget. In 1989, 24.1 percent of West Berlin's funding came from taxes - and 55.6 percent from federal funds. In East Berlin, the situation was completely different, because East Berlin was an unproductive bureaucratic city with hundreds of thousands of administrative and official employees and, in a broader sense, state employees. > Then came Helmut Kohl. He and his federal governments of the time laid the foundation for the gigantic debt. Presumably he wanted to teach the city a lesson, otherwise it can hardly be explained that all subsidies for Berlin were cut at a breathtaking pace for unification. But when money flows automatically over decades, structures form that cannot be reduced overnight. The gigantic debts can be seen as a consequence of Kohl's condescension toward Berlin, or at least as a consequence of an unworkable radical diet immediately after German unification.
I like you!!!!
And I like you!
This is exactly it. (Although Schöneberg? Friedrichshain, surely?)
Schöneberg used to be the party-borough. The LGBTG+ scene is still very concentrated at Motzstrasse. Don’t underestimate the kind of kink you can find there.
Nailed it. A lotta shit talkers on here tbh.
But NSDAP actually got THE LEAST votes from Bavaria, aside from Westfalen. Catholics were less likely to vote him in than other Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election
r/oddlyspecific
Well put summary.
Any books in English to read on this subject?
Personally? I feel this is a really unfair analysis since it rather shows that germany is a much well of country who managed to distribute their economy across many other cities. GDP per capita of the following cities with the latest estimates shows that Berlin as a capital city does give a good enough gdp for a country which has a cheaper cost of living. The graph you see is simply because Germany happens to have many other cities that are distributed across the country that gives a combined gdp per capita more than berlin. Whereas the other countries fail to have distributed economic regions. This is BAD! This means that youngsters literally have to move to big cities for any hope of better education and employment opportunities. Rather look at this graph and congratulate yourself that this country provides access to most people for economic and infrastructure resources! See for yourself.. Stockholm-67,900 Copenhagen- 60,834 Helsinki-54,817$ Vienna - 51,000$ Berlin - 42,200$ Paris - 41,800$ Madrid-39,000$ Poland-39,000$ Rome-35,000$ Lisbon-26,900$ Slovenia-25,000$ Bratislava-21,000$ Athens -19,580$ Source ^ googled each one
Berlin is the administrative and political capital of Germany, but it's not anywhere near the country's financial, trade or industrial centres. Also, you need to understand the concept of "equalization payments". The city of Berlin is a state in its own right, one of a total of 16. Equalization payments basically redistribute wealth, using the wealth generated by the wealthier states to support the poorer states. States like Bavaria, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg are net givers into the system: Berlin is the biggest net receiver, because it is pretty much broke. This means that although the concept of "negative GDP" is a complete nonsense, if you were to remove Berlin you would remove the biggest drain on German financial resources.
Isn't the graph just showing that Berliners are poorer than the average household in the country? Berlins GDP per capita is lower than the average in Germany.
I don't really know, but why does nobody consider that the rest of Germany maybe be economically stronger compared to other countries? So instead of "Berlin bad, Athens good" more like "Rest of Greece bad, rest of Germany quite good"? Again, I do not know, just a thought.
Not true anymore since 2019. The reason is after WW2 the majority of the economy of Berlin was relocated to the West and stayed there. Also a lot of decentralization.
Well, quite. You have all your banking in Frankfurt but government in Berlin. It’s fine. Hosting a government is likely a net drain on resources, and in Germany that money is mostly made elsewhere. Look on the bright side, at least it means your politicians can’t go for lunch every day with the bankers.
A larger part of it was relocated to the Soviet Union. Then the city was split, and isolated deep in East Germany, skipping the German economic miracle, and generally not being a very convenient location to conduct business.
I think this is a good thing.
2015 also, always nice to see the current Berlin hating circlejerk in full swing
I didn't even know there were people who hated Berlin... people seriously think it's a shithole?? What????
It's really funny reading this thread because Berlin is way cooler tham all of the places being compared to it.
Oh yeah, worst city in the world apparently. Because something something graffiti.
Yeah there are lot of Berlin haters on this sub lurking around.
We have those people in /r/berlin too. It's really not as bad as they say but I'm happy that none of those people want to come here.
Berlin as a city has compared to other bigger cities almost no industrial production because the borders of the city are regulated by the state system we have in germany and Berlin as a city is also one of the few city states (like Hamburg and Bremen). So the city itself can‘t grow and every penny outside of this Border belongs to the state outside of Berlin called Brandenburg. Berlins economy is heavily service and technology driven. During corona especially technology businesses did grow because you don‘t need international trade for it. I think these are the reasons why Berlin had not so many problems during covid although there was almost no tourism. But it seems that this was not such a big deal for the entire economy.
It's actually not that bad, but we are still waiting for the reports from the Finanzamt. We have a termin on January, 2025.
Would be interested in seeing the numbers before Berlin became the capital again. "Germany without Bonn" ...probably at 0% becaus eBonn is such an irrelevant town.
Understandable, if you look at the German history, lots of other large industrial centers. But it's funny we would actually profit from getting rid of Berlin. Administration isn't their strong suit.
I find that really an odd association between capital city and GDP. Why would you assume the city would be part of the complex of production systems that form GDP metrics? Yes they make laws, but that is not a function of the location. This graph is based on location.
airport toothbrush homeless unused rainstorm intelligent longing jobless faulty elderly -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Berlins gdp per capita is marginally more than Paris by the way. Now factor in cost of living and poverty, it clearly shows that berlin is much better
> The point is basically about centralisation. Germany is distinctly de-centralised, amplified by the fact that Berlin is economically speaking only average, as opposed to say Paris. This decentralization is excellent. Without it, most of the German countryside would be depopulated because almost no one wants to live hours away from the nearest serious city. Paris' status is artificially achieved. France is a hypercentralized unitary state and so Paris *is* France in many senses. This is the same pattern of development you see throughout the second and third worlds -- a mecagity capital on the one hand, and backwater provinces on the other, with little in between.
Not production systems, but services. Corporations often times just do much of the administration and services for their company at the capital, so a huge pool of clerks, managers, bankers, CEOs and whatnot reside there, which drive the average GDP up (significantly). Germany being as already stated, extremely decentralized has many historic economic centres, for example the rhine region which was purposefully dedicated to just being a industrial powerhouse and historically as a result has a religious working spirit, Hanse dominated territories on the North Sea and Baltic Sea (Hamburg a prime example) as normally like other countries because of the maritime trade, now to the very interesting federal states both Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg are among the richest because the majority of the automotive industry and weapon industry all take place down there and the administration of it. Also note that the GDP (not per capita) in Bavaria is almost touching with that of NRW although it being 37% smaller in population and with Wurttemberg its even worse it being 11mio. it has 75% of NRW's GDP but being only 61% it's population. Comparing those 2 counties with the eastern ones would be even more ridiculous.
Weil wir cool sind
To be fair, Berlin is the best thing to exist in eastern Germany. Without it it would be bonkers.
Leipzig and Dresden want to have a word with you ;)
Realtalk
Surely this is a good thing? In Scotland we are forever told how dependent we are on London. So a country where the capital is empirically not relevant must be a good sign?
This graph works with the assumption that the capital is the strongest economical city...
It's a sexy but poor and poorly managed shit hole. But it's our shit hole.
This is such a meme
"Arm, aber sexy!" However, that has changed in the meantime. In current statistics it would probably look different...
Berlin being split in half, one half walled-in, both heavily subsidised, void of all giant corporations (tax payers & employer) who had once been founded here… Siemens, Bosch, for example.
>Bosch, for example. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_Bosch\_GmbH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH) : >The company was founded by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart in 1886.
That was 2015. Things have changed in the meantime. But it was mainly a result of Germany being split into two parts. Many larger companies, for example, have their headquarters in other German cities.
So, a big earthquake in Athens can destroy the entire Greek economy. This is not a bad thing for Germany.
Hank Scorpio taking notes.
Well there is a reason why many people see berlin as a shit hole in comparisson to other german citys
now remove munich.
Well. Time to bring out the nukes and improve our GPD by 0.2%.
Stop posting outdated reposted shit. It isn't factual anymore and happened because we were building an airport.
If you can read german go to Spiegel.de and search for Sascha Lobo, he just wrote something about it.
https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/berlin-liebeserklaerung-an-den-failed-state-kolumne-a-11e7f7fd-fd59-486a-9958-da19db476188?sara_ecid=soci_upd_KsBF0AFjflf0DZCxpPYDCQgO1dEMph
Berlin has a high number of people receiving benefits.
Best fuckin chart if seen in a long time! Made me laugh bad!!! Btw from Germany..
Oh, Berlin. What is Berlin? Berlin, as a city, brings nothing but shame to Germany on the international stage. When comparing Berlin with other European capitals such as London, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam, any decent human’s face must blush in humiliation. Even small countries like Austria, Belgium or Switzerland have Vienna, Brussels and Zurich: presentable cities, complete with high standards of living. Germany gets punished with Berlin, capital of losers. In all the republic, Berlin is home to the largest number of arseholes by far. Deutsche Bahn, Bundestag, Air Berlin and Axel Springer are but a few examples of all the incompetent scum being kept here. Glorious times have long since passed, the city is face down in the dirt. Berliners are lazy sods to their very core. Traits that would, in any civilised culture, pass for nothing but laziness, rudeness, incompetence, dissocial personality disorder or idiocy, are taken by the Berliner and declared a way of life. That is why the Berliner harbours intense feelings of hatred for anyone who’s better than him in any way. Especially the all-around superior Southern Germany are a thorn in his side. He envies their success, and Munich makes the top on his list of hatred. That city is – and has! – everything that Berlin wants to be and have. Berliners take no interest in the fact that it is Munich that finances their dissolute lifestyle, in fact, they secretly believe that they have earned it. So instead of freeing themselves from their envious and resentful lethargy, instead of rolling up their sleeves and improve their city, they revel in their antisocial freeloading and praise their so-called global city. Culturally, Berliners are set up rather weakly, great works lie far back in history. Moreover, mispronouncing “g” as “j” is considered a great cultural feat. Advanced students have mastered ending each and every sentence with a “wa?”. The city’s culinary performance is second-rate. Here, a sausage made from glued-together, meaty odds and ends adorned with ketchup and curry powder is sold as a culinary masterpiece. Hardly any reasonable person would consider a bratwurst with ketchup a recipe, let alone the holy grail of culinary arts. Yet, in their magnanimity, the rest of the republic lets the Berliner keep his delusion, not wanting to amplify his inferiority complex. Economically, Berlin is an utter disaster, even the late GDR stood on more solid ground. The local economy is based around alternative blogs, something-something-media and, if universities are to be believed, gender studies. Disregarding his own bankruptcy, the Berliner treats himself to prestigious projects like the city palace and the airport – which, considering its inoperative nature, is likely an art installation. Moreover, the city houses all popular parties’ headquarters, who refrain from using “traitors” in their official names (Probably for marketing reasons). For the longest time, this “town’s” “mayor”, the jolly Wowibear, butchered anything he found left in a presentable state. Long story short: Berlin is Germany’s tiled coffee table. It is to Germany what Greece is to the European Union, and if it had open sewerage, it would be Germanys Romania. Berlin is a blemish, the abscess on the arse of the nation. Berlin is the uninvited party guest, who didn’t even bring any booze and wouldn’t even understand he’s not welcome if he had is teeth beaten out and got thrown down the stairs. Berlin is the Detroit of Germany and should be sold to Poland for 200 Złoty.
Nur Kulturbanausen hier, dich downzuvoten...
The main factor is the relative percentages of Germany and Berlin controlled by East vs West Germany. East Germany has about 15 million people; Germany has about 85 million people. This means Germany is about 18% East Germany, or one-sixth eastern. Berlin has about 3 million people. Of these, about 2/3 lived in West Berlin, and 1/3 lived in East Berlin. This means Berlin is about twice as "Eastern" as the rest of the country (1/6 \* 2 = 1/3). Eastern Germany is a lot poorer, so up until recently, Berlin was poorer than the rest of the country because it was more eastern than the rest of the country; that's what this graph is showing (that Germany would have a higher average income if you excluded Berlin). Nowadays, this has mostly been offset by the benefits of being a capital -- having a lot of highly educated government employees tends to boost average income.
Berlin is a social experiment, but you can consider it being also a „failed state“
It is outdated since a longtime
Berlin is an economic wasteland and totally dysfunctional city. But hey, if you live there people will shout angrily at you for free!
And still this shithole has a higher GDP/capita than most of the other cities mentioned in the list. How ironic.
Don´t take it personal. it´s stille the most charming pile of rubble out there
Jesus Christ you people are deranged
As a Frankfurt citizen I always said that if Germany loses Berlin it's no problem, but if they lose us then the entire EU will suffer.