Sredzkistraße

Berlin as an outsider

6 months ago, there was a great article written in the Irish Times’ magazine by Louise East, who, in her own words:

…with another London winter looming and my lease running out, I decided I needed a change. Within days, I had arranged a sublet on a cheap apartment in Berlin and found a friend gracious enough to give my boxes basement space.

After this article, which is definitely worth the read if you haven’t come across it before, there wasn’t a peep out of her, and I’d become suspicious that she’d perhaps fallen prey to Berlin’s wilder side and been checked into a mental institution. Thankfully, that was just my imagination running riot, and she’s back today with another article:

Six months on, I’m in the throes of a full-blown crush and like all newly besotted people, I’m kind of insufferable. On a bad day, I’ll argue that Berlin is woven from a blend of cashmere and unicorn milk known to solve nine out of 10 Middle Eastern crises and eliminate e-mail spam.

Apparently, the shower in her profoundly beautiful apartment was going on the blink. She writes of the German work ethic:

… Ten minutes later, a plumber phoned and told me he was terribly sorry, but it would not be possible for him to attend to my situation until perhaps 3pm. At that point, it was noon.

And of the unique reaction to the world-wide downturn that Berlin has taken:

A recent article in Der Spiegel online confirmed what I guessed already; the recession is not hitting Berlin in the same way it is affecting the rest of the world. With jobs not there to be lost, and consumerism already scaled back, Berlin appears to be practically immune to the black panic gripping the rest of the world.

Or, as one gallery owner quoted in the Der Spiegel piece puts it: “Berlin is now the only place in the world you can go where everyone isn’t depressed. In this evolutionary cycle, they’re perfectly adapted for survival.”

Clearly, much credit must go to the quality of Berlin’s social services (high) and its price of living (low) but increasingly, I wonder whether some tiny, seemingly trivial differences may, in fact, be the opposable thumbs of city evolution.

Thanks to John for bringing this new article to my attention!