#468: Rent cap legal, trams too heavy, even cheaper coffee
The population keeps growing.
A strange thing happened on the U7 this morning. Between two stations, the recording that says “Zurückbleiben bitte” got stuck in a loop, with the pleasant voice of the BVG, Philippa Jarke, repeating the phrase 20-30 times over the speakers.
This was a good metaphor for Berlin, I thought: pleasant and funny in some way but also stuck in a loop of dysfunction, indecision and incompetence. Stuck in the past.
Old myths and complaints are endlessly repeated. Solutions are mulled over again and again and again but seldom implemented.
Somehow things don’t really move forward that much. Which, for me, as someone who fell in love with a very different Berlin at the turn of the century, has a certain nostalgic charm, but I can also understand that the city’s reluctance and inability to embrace modernity can be frustrating for newer residents who might have come here expecting the progressive, efficient capital of the world’s third largest economy — and not something stuck in a loop.
When the doors opened at the next station, the glitch ceased. But what will it take to get Berlin un-stuck?
News below.
Maurice
📆 A warm thank to all of you who attended last week’s 20% Berlin News Quiz. I really enjoyed it. Early birds can book their spot at the next one on March 3, this time at cosy Neukölln bar, Geist im Glas. Places limited!
Trams too heavy?
Staying with the BVG, our local public transport provider has postponed the launch of the new 51-metre, 60-tonne Urbanliner trams on the M4 line between Lichtenberg and Mitte. The extra-long vehicles might be too heavy for Alexanderplatz. The trams could endanger the many U-Bahn tunnels beneath the square, it emerged on Saturday, when the BVG said the maiden voyage of the Urbanliner was delayed to review “static recalculations around Alexanderplatz.” The XL trams hold 312 people and were ordered to serve the M4, the city’s busiest tram line. Sounds like a possibly expensive screw-up in the making.
A win for team tenant
A Berlin landlord’s complaint about the government’s extension of the national rent cap was thrown out by Germany’s Constitutional Court. Her constitutional rights had not been violated, the court in Karlsruhe found. As a rule of thumb, the rent cap states new rental contacts can’t exceed average local rents by more than 10%. Meanwhile, the Berlin government’s own rent monitoring office reports that in just 6% of submitted cases did rents conform with the rent cap. The Mietprüfstelle, as its known, was set up to check whether rental contracts conformed to the rent cap — anyone can apply to have their contract checked.
Even cheaper coffee
A Chinese discount coffee chain appropriately named Cotti has just opened six locations in Berlin. According to news site Watson, they offer espresso for 99 cents and super-cheap deals for people who install their app. Beijing-based Cotti is opening cafes in other German cities and runs a total of 18,000 locations around the world. The debate over local start-up LAP Coffee threatening independent cafes is going to seem quaint.
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🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
💪 Merz laments loss of US leadership
🔫 German and UK military chiefs state case for rearming
😠 Epstein’s relationship with Deutsche Bank
🎭 Far-right character’s monologue prompts violent scenes at German theatre
Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin
🪩 BOTA
Thursday, 19.02, 8 pm – 3 am. arkaoda, Neukölln. €15
HEMATOMA returns live after four years away, joined by Nikita T and Vaccaro in their first live sets, and Folly Ghost. Bass, 808, baile funk, and dub synthesis. It promises to be a fun night.
🔉 Algomystica x S4NTP pres. The Non-Trivial Sound System
Friday, 20.02, 7 pm. silent green Kuppelhalle, Wedding. €6
UdK Berlin collective S4NTP built a 30-speaker orchestra from salvaged Hi-Fi boxes, studio monitors, and broken toy speakers. Live spatialization performances using sensors, analog electronics, and open-source software that they developed themselves.
💿 RA Dig Deep
Fri–Sat, 20–21.02, 11 am – 9 pm. Refuge Worldwide, Niemetzstraße 1, Neukölln. Free
Free charity record fair with RA: OYE, !K7, Four Tet, Clone Records, and 150+ label donors. DJ sets, industry talks from 1:30 pm Saturday. All proceeds to War Child.
🎸 They Are Gutting A Body Of Water
Sunday, 22.02. Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau. €25
Philly's TAGABOW - Stereogum's pick for modern shoegaze's most vital band. Breakcore interludes, N64 samples, they play on the floor facing each other. New album LOTTO . Anti-spectacle in an artist-run space.
Factoid
The city’s population rose to 3.91 million last year, reports t-online, 16,500 more people than last year. Eastern districts grew by 0.9%, the west by just 0.1%. Eastern borough Treptow-Köpenick led the pack with 5,450 new residents. Of the newcomers, 4,541 moved from abroad. The share of foreign residents remained stable at 24.9%. I suspect that number could sink as more of ya’ll get German passports — so does it really make sense to change our name to 25% Berlin?
🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗
🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify
My first thought when I read The Guardian article about the assault on the actor at the Bochum theater was that those were paid agitators.
I heard a recent report on The Europeans podcast about Russian intelligence recruiting disaffected young men on Telegram to committ random acts of sabotage and vandalism throughout western Europe.
Russian propaganda has been trying for several years to convince Americans that antifa is an actual organization (it's not). And now I'm starting to see suspicious antifa propaganda pop up here in Berlin -- even in my own neighborhood of Wendenschloss.
It all seems just a little too coincidental.
It’s incredible just how often German people can’t get things right.
I read an article here about this.
https://www.dw.com/en/why-germany-big-construction-projects-often-run-over-time-and-budget-elbphilharmonie-ber-airport/a-75206468