The state of the economy.....

[Arkady]

At some point we have to recognize that people in general are a pretty uninspiring bunch. I've done that and sleep much better. And it does not prevent me from doing what I do.

This bears quoting, I've come to the same conclusion that despite our romantic notions about new places people are roughly the same everywhere, though perhaps with varying degrees of institutionalized compassion.

Cultivate a way of life and a private universe around you, the right people will come. Authenticity and solidarity are as fluid as the people who practice them.

Thankfully I think Berlin has installed some safeguards against the San Francisco boutique effect like the recently passed rent cap. But at the end of the day I don't think a thriving tech sector will have a negative impact on the broader culture, especially the music culture. And I would not so easily conflate the terminal yuppiedom of the SF venture capital wasteland and Berlin's industry, at least my impression from afar is that the atmosphere is pretty different.

[Faust]

This bears quoting, I've come to the same conclusion that despite our romantic notions about new places people are roughly the same everywhere, though perhaps with varying degrees of institutionalized compassion.

Cultivate a way of life and a private universe around you, the right people will come. Authenticity and solidarity are as fluid as the people who practice them.

Though thankfully I think Berlin has installed some safeguards against the San Francisco boutique effect like the recently passed rent cap.

So does this!

[Arkady]

Well, there are social issues everywhere but you get a little tired of seeing entire families dying in the street in Soho.

[Arkady]

What do you guys think, when's the most opportune moment to convert USD to Euro going to be between now and March? Crypto I know well but Forex is unfamiliar to me.

[Fuuma]

i guess it's been heading the same way as san francisco for years now. in with craft coffee, uber, hipsters and their macbooks, bye bye solidarity and underground culture.

Berlin is about to become hell on earth. Some old Berliner (born and bred at the end of the 50s) I know recently went back and he still liked some of the (decadent) culture but everyone can feel where it is heading. Ah well, at least the racists will be happy, SF has like 2 blacks and 4 Arabs inside the city proper. It is also the only place where the idea of a token woman CEO makes sense.

To Berliners credit most "cool" cities already arrived where they might end, the biggest mistake 90s critics of consumer culture made was to think Starbuckification of the world would be done through generic chains like Starbucks instead of through gluten free hipster bakeries. Craft beer is the opiate of the urban masses.

[Arkady]

Alright I gotta ask, what exactly is the source of everyone's terror at kale and craft beers? For some reason I feel like these things don't affect me while I'm doing the whole human existence thing. Sitting on a fashion forum saying consumerism is breeding hell on Earth is a little difficult to wrap your head around.

"underground culture" (whatever this means in 2015, coming from the music side I can say with certainty it is a fiction) and solidarity are defined by their resilience. If a changing social landscape with more expats (but without rents skyrocketing suddenly) somehow blights these things then the problem was much bigger than gentrification to begin with.

If you don't want to engage in gentrification I might suggest moving to the Ngorngoro world heritage site in Africa where man is believed to have originated.

[Shucks]

i get the sense that you are not really asking a genuine question, but berlin rents have gone up an average 46% the past six years and overnight stays (tourists) have more than doubled the past ten years to 28.7 MILLION overnight stays in 2015. these figures are related.

here are some links on the gentrification and real estate development that is pushing lower income- and elderly residents out of the city and destroying its culture...

the eviction of lower income residents and destruction of local communities:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tur...&NewsCatID=385

developments along the spree, destroying public space in the city:
http://www.ms-versenken.org/

the destruction of green spaces:
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin-aktu...en-opfern.html

the last remnants of the wall torn down to build luxury apartments:
http://diary.radiant-flux.net/2013/0...ichshain-2013/

and so on and so on...

so yeah, fuck craft beer.

[_AR]

What do you guys think, when's the most opportune moment to convert USD to Euro going to be between now and March? Crypto I know well but Forex is unfamiliar to me.

Not worth taking an fx risk. Just covert as needed, or lock in if it's at a level you're comfortable paying rent at, etc., but it's not something you can "beat" so be wary of people advertising something like that.

Also none of this is real financial advice, so take with a grain of salt.

[Arkady]

Not worth taking an fx risk. Just covert as needed, or lock in if it's at a level you're comfortable paying rent at, etc., but it's not something you can "beat" so be wary of people advertising something like that.

Also none of this is real financial advice, so take with a grain of salt.

Gotcha, I figured as much -- thank you.

[Arkady]

i get the sense that you are not really asking a genuine question, but berlin rents have gone up an average 46% the past six years and overnight stays (tourists) have more than doubled the past ten years to 28.7 MILLION overnight stays in 2015. these figures are related.

here are some links on the gentrification and real estate development that is pushing lower income- and elderly residents out of the city and destroying its culture...

the eviction of lower income residents and destruction of local communities:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tur...&NewsCatID=385

developments along the spree, destroying public space in the city:
http://www.ms-versenken.org/

the destruction of green spaces:
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin-aktu...en-opfern.html

the last remnants of the wall torn down to build luxury apartments:
http://diary.radiant-flux.net/2013/0...ichshain-2013/

and so on and so on...

so yeah, fuck craft beer.

No I understand perfectly what you mean, but it's a little hard to go against the inevitability of urban sprawl. Everyone is displaced eventually in one form or another, I personally do not feel like the cultural or socio-political guardian of every place where I live.

I hear this debate on a biweekly basis here in New York. I would say there's a serious difference between, for example, the predominantly Polish Sunset Park neighborhood becoming entirely Hispanic, Chinese and now slowly hosting more and more students and young professionals of all races, and the forced gentrification of New York city on the heels of the Kerner commission findings in 1967 and the government's attempt to curtail rioting through the "dispersal of the urban poor." One is an inevitability of migration, the other is an engineered travesty. Which the situation in Berlin falls into I can't decisively say without being there.

Edit: Though I would add I may have a different attitude here because I grew up as an immigrant from an early age and in general migration is always tied to necessity first and foremost in my psyche.

[Shucks]

in general migration is always tied to necessity.

to me there is an enormous difference between 'capitalism' and 'migration'.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...crosoft-google

oh and yeah, about "feeling like a guardian", that's what i meant with solidarity...

[Arkady]

to me there is an enormous difference between 'capitalism' and 'migration'.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...crosoft-google

oh and yeah, about "feeling like a guardian", that's what i meant with solidarity...

Hmm fair enough, though I am not entirely sure showing up somewhere and proclaiming yourself gatekeeper is so much solidarity as romanticism and self-importance. I'm skeptical of the reaction this attitude would have in many places -- surely you're familiar with the Brooklyn dipshit who moves into Bushwick from Ohio and immediately starts protesting the gentrification of the area. There has to be some compromise there.

As to the article, this is a very understandable concern but in some sense it's the responsibility of the municipal government to preserve local culture as much as it is of the migrants. Berlin has taken first steps towards that by capping rent for new tenants at not more than 10% above the local average to create a more natural rise in prices. Something I'd say is unthinkable in New York.

The melding of the tech culture with Berlin's pre-existing atmosphere makes pretty logical sense to me, I would say it's an opportunity to build something wonderful to the same degree that it may be a catastrophe. Time will tell. But, to be precious with culture and consider the expansion of settlements as fundamentally imperialist is near sighted. There is not that much room on this thing at the end of the day.

The culture in Berlin is unique for obvious reasons but it in itself arose from the dynamic shakeup of the capitalist-communist dynamic. In essence capitalism created it.

[Shucks]

time "will" not tell - time has already told. you're actually late to the party. berlin culture has been dying for years...

and it seems you have not fully understood what i mean about solidarity. it is an actual genuine expression of empathy and support for someone else. it used to be an integral part of berlin culture. and in this discussion, solidarity means genuine empathy and support for someone who is gradually being pushed out of their home by techno tourists/tech hipsters coming to berlin to live it up for a while and then move on to leipzig or some other place - like cockroaches...

there is no 'melding' of culture - there is only displacing and replacing.

[Arkady]

Hahaha the 'cockroaches' -- clearly time for a Rwanda style house-cleaning then my dude. Christ.

I get you on the solidarity entirely now, though -- I'd mentioned it as institutionalized compassion a bit back. In a sense though this type of solidarity is fading everywhere as we become more insular and consumptive end users. It's a Berlin problem but it's a human one as well.

Though half of New York already moved there in 2004 there's still much to be seen as to what effect the tech companies will have. In the end though a city is never ONE fucking thing, you can adapt a dimension of a 3.4 million person population to a perspective but based on the article you wrote there's a clear interest in there being a concurrence of these forces or it wouldn't have been cultivated to begin with. It's all people.

[bukka]

based on the article you wrote there's a clear interest in there being a concurrence of these forces or it wouldn't have been cultivated to begin with. It's all people.

Link please, I missed it.