Magazine N°159

GREEN BERLIN, AGAIN AND AGAIN

People say anything and everything about European capitals. That they're old, that they're in decline, that they won't recover from the logical techno revolution. In short, that London stopped swinging a long time ago and that Paris, like nostalgia, isn't what it used to be. Berlin is a bit of an exception to the rule, with a history all its own, a wall like a wound and two dictatorships on the books.

It's this unique history - the wall, the fall of the wall, a whole generation of young people reclaiming the East and laying the foundations for an original, alternative, rebellious and green way of life - that has made the German capital one of the most important creative hotspots in Europe over the last twenty years.

Living in Berlin was fun, light-hearted; no one was unaware of this, especially young graduates, whether German or from the rest of the world. The result: very strong demographic growth and, inevitably, the rise in rents that goes with it. Less than in London, less than in Paris, but still.

However, Berlin prefers to think positively and to measure the benefits of the influx of young Asian and North American professionals to boost the high-tech sector, with 17 % of German start-ups already based in the German capital.

The industrial sites of yesteryear are now being transformed into major research campuses, not to mention the small factories and former workshops that have become lofts and flats, restaurants and cafés on the east side of the capital, places to meet, exchange ideas and challenge oneself, the better to combat the threats and questions that fleurissent just about everywhere on the globe. Politics of course, the European Union, China, America, Africa...

But also, and above all, the problems linked to ecology and the predicted climate catastrophe. As far as the latter is concerned, the city's slightly rebellious atmosphere has not entirely disappeared. Better still, and beyond the anecdote of the urban vegetable gardens that it works on in the old-fashioned way, it profites largely from the talent of its youth to put artificial intelligence projects at the service of the environment.
That's all we're waiting for.

Serge Barret, Editor-in-Chief