[dao-]

> There may still be very valid reasons to protest Google in Berlin, but I wonder if the people objecting understood the distinction:

Very much so. Been to a panel discussion organized by them.

The fear was that the incubator would accelerate gentrification. Doesn't matter whether the pay checks come from Google at the end of the day.

[badpun]

> The fear was that the incubator would accelerate gentrification.

Sort of understood, given that Germans are a nation of life-long renters (as opposed to home-owners). Gentrification is generally great for the owner and terrible for the renter.

[woodpanel]

> Gentrification is generally great for the owner and terrible for the renter.

Well not entirely.

Gentrification is started and driven by new groups of tenants moving into a neighbourhood. Property owners and investors will only jump onto the bandwagon afterwards. With German restrictions on rent-increases, being one of those original gentrificators (OG) you can lock in an incredibly low rent in a place where rents for new leases skyrocket. As long as you stay in your flat, you're shielded from those rent-hikes.

Growing up, I've had many friends who lived literally in city mansions (4m++ ceiling height, art deco, 6-10 rooms for a family of three) in a fully gentrified area paying a rent lower than I paid for my no-go-area 25sqm studio. All because their parents kept the lease from their 1970s flatshare (pre-gentrification, no-go-area then).

Today even more than 20yrs ago, those OGs often live in an opaque, inaccessible grey housing market: If they want to move (because e.g. the 6 people they share a flat with became 1 spouse and a kid), they first look out for other OGs to do a lease-switch. Which means their rent level stays pre-gentrification forever. If nothing comes across they can still "resell" the lease.

[maxsilver]

> Gentrification is generally great for the owner

Gentrification is great for wealthy landowners. For poor/middle-class homeowners (in the USA, anyway), there is about 100 asterisks attached to that "great". And in various situations, gentrification can hurt poor/middle-class people even if they own a property.

[C1sc0cat]

well you would have thought that after a while Germans should have realised that renting (long term is a mugs game). - Just entrenches the power of the elites.

[woodpanel]

It's not – at least in Germany. Laws prohibit intense rent hikes, thus you can lock in a low rent, with a delta to new leases that is just ever increasing.

Also, the idea to make everyone a landlord while widely accepted in housing economics to be a good thing, I happen to think is shortsighted and contradicts the principle of "economics of scale".

Housing companies (can be non-profit co-ops as well) often provide much more quality/€ to tenants than the landlord, who owns 1 flat and is always overstrained with the simplest maintnance requests.

[freeflight]

> It's not – at least in Germany. Laws prohibit intense rent hikes, thus you can lock in a low rent, with a delta to new leases that is just ever increasing.

That's great in theory, but in practice has literally dozens of ways to be bypassed. Rents in Bavaria and Berlin have increased by nearly a quarter over these past 4 years.

One of the problems being that the Mietspiegel only accounts for new rentals, with steady increases in rent prices, it does not reflect the actual "average rent prices" because it's missing data for people who've been living in the same place for years and up to decades, with the same low rent.

[woodpanel]

You‘re comparing apples to oranges. Or in that case existing to new leases.

The latter has way more room for increase than the former - by law. Add to that, that owners often stop bothering increasing rents for longterm tenants (because the allowed increase is the more miniscule the more years pass by) and concentrate on hikes for new leases.

[freeflight]

It's not like people had or have much of a choice, buying property ain't cheap in Germany, at least outside of completely underdeveloped and remote areas. Even reasonably wealthy people usually have to finance it through a extra credit.

Also ain't helping that over these past decades incomes have stagnated while job security got way worse, so people are less likely to commit to such long-term liabilities.