[mmaldacker]

Berlin has a debt of over 60 billion euros, with an annual budget of 20 billion, 5.5 of which comes from the other laenders. This is huge, the other laenders have complained multiple times that they need to cut costs. Its GDP is 80 billion, compared to frankfurt (70 billion) or munich (60 billion) it's nothing as its a much bigger city. Berlin doesn't have a financial sector or any major industry really. Population has stayed (more or less) the same for the last 60 years.

Yes Berlin looks amazing considering ww2 & cold war, but is nowhere near the major european capital it should be.

Also, London today from London 2 decades ago is very different, a simple example is canary wharf that didn't have a single sky scraper 23 years ago.

[jacquesm]

Sure, but neither Frankfurt nor Munich had as much backlog as Berlin. Not even close. I remember counting 50 construction cranes in Berlin at some point in the early 90's. The rate at which stuff was being fixed was nothing short of incredible. And that's work-in-progress, it will take 100's of billions before you could even begin to call it complete.