[Xylakant]

> I am no specialist on that subject, but I suspect it also comes from the unique history of Berlin, not (just) financial incompetence.

Financial incompetence and bad planning are a strong factor. West Berlin used to be subsidized before the wall fell and since nobody ever questioned the amount of money flowing here they could basically do what they wanted. After the reunion Berlins administration expected the population to grow to 5 million by the year 2000 but that growth never materialized. Still, they kept spending money like they used to.

> Problem for a long time has been that Berlin is very big, yet has no big industries.

It actually used to be the core of the german tech industry. There's whole quarters named after companies: Siemensstadt, Borsigwerke, ... and whole blocks in the city that used to be factories - Oberbaum city that used to be the Osram Lamp factories, Varta, ... A lot are now converted to office space.

> Actually I often wonder what all the people here do for a living. I guess the main employer is the government now.

Government is a strong factor. A lot of media companies moved to Berlin and a lot of service and support, especially for companies which trade a lot with eastern europe. The BASF has their whole eastern european business support in Berlin - that big tower at Warschauer Strasse. Berlin is fairly strong with biotech startups as well. No industry to speak of, though.