| Understanding context is one of the most important thing, when you're trying understand the content/situation. You repeatedly write that this happens because of some snowflakes' NIMBYism. Which is definitely not. If we were talking about any other city in the world, whatever you're saying would make sense... because from the outside it looks like "oh the people who moved to city center doesn't want anybody else to move there". That's not the case with Berlin. Maybe you missed the topic recently but there was WWII and then East Germany, with Berlin Wall, death strip in between and East German State Police Stasi... and people who wants to escape from East. Of course all of these happened in the city center, because the wall separated the city from the middle of it, and the areas once city center, become the dangerous ghettos. The canals in Kreuzberg has become grave for some immigrant (and German alike) children, because it belonged to the East. If any child accidentally falls in the waters and scream for help nobody could save them. Because anyone who would enter the canals would be shot by East German police. And they did. And people couldn't save their kids from the waters, after these incidents happened. This is just one of the disadvantages of living next to a death strip, in the epicentre of the nuclear cold war. Because of these dangerous properties, the place was cheap. And people in more "hip" areas didn't wanted to rent their flats to young people, artists, punks etc. So these people find home in Kreuzberg. But yeah, feel free to forget about these context and try to blindly invalidate peoples experiences. --- I gave the same example in another comment: There are many shops in Kreuzberg, which are located there for let's say 50-60 years. There are grocery stores, bakeries, markets, shoe repair shops, cheap quality restaurants, local bookstores etc. But these people has to go now, because there is better buyer, who can afford the prices that these people can not. Or they have to increase their prices too. You were buying a croissant for 0,40€... now it's 4€. But hey, you can like our instagram page! Now you're accusing these people of b+ching about the development, and you think they're greedy and they get what they wanted, now they're protesting so others can not get what they have? Or do they want to live in the area, where they've been living for the last 60 years, and experienced many many disadvantages of the area? The area was ghetto, so unwanted people located there. Now the area is hip again (after 100 years), and the people who lives there is unwanted again. |