We actually made the walking tour this time around. Joe and I met up with Caroline, a high school friend who was visiting a friend of hers in Berlin. The tour was great, and added some more historical context to the smattering of things we’d seen over the past few days.
Our tour guide, a nice Irish guy, also explained part of why Berlin remains so affordable today, or as one mayor described it, “Poor, but sexy.” The lack of a military requirement in West Berlin in the post-war period drew a lot of bohemian types to the city, and as the political capital of the country, but not the banking or industrial center, wages remained relatively low. Technology has a presence in Berlin today, but hasn’t driven up prices in the same way it has in other large cities. I mentioned the population descrease in a previous post–Berlin is one of the few large cities to have a population decrease since WWII. All of these factors means it remains relatively affordable, especially when combined with tight rent-control restrictions.
After the tour we met up with Caroline’s friend for a sushi dinner, and then enjoyed a few beers in Kreuzberg.