<story><title>&apos;Google go home&apos;: the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/09/fuck-off-google-the-berlin-neighbourhood-fighting-off-a-tech-giant-kreuzberg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhomde</author><text>I think Berlins &amp;quot;Poor but happy&amp;quot; times are fast coming to an end. Rents have been rising quickly the last few years and tech companies and startups becoming more prevalent. Heck, Neukölln went from being a cheap  alternative to being as trendy and expensive as Kreuzberg.&lt;p&gt;Berlin kinda, from what I understand, enjoyed it&amp;#x27;s special culture much because it wasn&amp;#x27;t an industrial city and lacked an large international airport, but cheap rent, international vibe and fun hipster values seems like the perfect void for tech to move into now that rents and prices in the usual &amp;quot;big cities&amp;quot; have gone through the roof. I can also imagine cities like Amsterdam and Berlin  getting some Brexit escapees.&lt;p&gt;Mark my words, Berlin will be Europe&amp;#x27;s Silicon Valley within a few years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>biztos</author><text>I agree completely that &amp;quot;cheap Berlin&amp;quot; is rapidly disappearing.  Just this morning I was checking real-estate prices[0] for the first time in a few years and was a bit shocked.  Folks in Silicon Valley or Munich or Hamburg would probably still find it cheap-ish but AFAIK local salaries have not remotely kept up with this trend. A million Euros for a nice family-sized flat in a good neighborhood is not exotic anymore, but for most Berliners that&amp;#x27;s an absurd sum.&lt;p&gt;Another interesting thing is that there are more and more ways to spend more and more of your money in Berlin.  Consumerism is definitely on the rise, which IMO is bad news for people not making much money.&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t say Berlin lacks an international airport, I would say instead that the corruption&amp;#x2F;incompetence nexus managed to spare us the monstrosity of BER[1] and we can continue to use the lovely old urban airport at Tegel[2], though granted there are a lot of stopovers depending on where you&amp;#x27;re going.&lt;p&gt;Anyway I really doubt Berlin will be anything like Silicon Valley, well, ever.  You could start with how radically differently the local tech scene views labor, but that&amp;#x27;s just the tip of the iceberg.  I would love to be wrong though.&lt;p&gt;[edit: formatting]&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.immobilienscout24.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.immobilienscout24.de&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Berlin_Tegel_Airport&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Berlin_Tegel_Airport&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;Google go home&apos;: the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/09/fuck-off-google-the-berlin-neighbourhood-fighting-off-a-tech-giant-kreuzberg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhomde</author><text>I think Berlins &amp;quot;Poor but happy&amp;quot; times are fast coming to an end. Rents have been rising quickly the last few years and tech companies and startups becoming more prevalent. Heck, Neukölln went from being a cheap  alternative to being as trendy and expensive as Kreuzberg.&lt;p&gt;Berlin kinda, from what I understand, enjoyed it&amp;#x27;s special culture much because it wasn&amp;#x27;t an industrial city and lacked an large international airport, but cheap rent, international vibe and fun hipster values seems like the perfect void for tech to move into now that rents and prices in the usual &amp;quot;big cities&amp;quot; have gone through the roof. I can also imagine cities like Amsterdam and Berlin  getting some Brexit escapees.&lt;p&gt;Mark my words, Berlin will be Europe&amp;#x27;s Silicon Valley within a few years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drinchev</author><text>&amp;gt; Berlin will be Europe&amp;#x27;s Silicon Valley within a few years.&lt;p&gt;Things that need to happen before this :&lt;p&gt;1. Salaries need to grow faster. Rent is really high for the new comers specialists.&lt;p&gt;2. Companies need to increase the salary gap between good and bad workers. Right now you are not able to negotiate more than 10% on top of the &amp;quot;average&amp;quot; salary.&lt;p&gt;3. Germany needs to fix the privileges of employees having options &amp;#x2F; shares of the company. With the current legislation &amp;#x2F; founders attitude is quite boring and useless.</text></comment>