The irony is that this activism is often made up of people who are highly educated, affluent (because of parents or soon-to-be paying off high-education) who weren't born in Berlin themselves – in other words: By gentrificators.

Irony that might be true on the internet but not in the real world.

Meet your self-proclaimed „activist“ in charge, Berlin-Kreuzberg’s housing councilor [1].

Born in Cologne (not Berlin), finished School in Frankfurt (not Berlin), studied humanities for nine years (in Hamburg, Barcelona and then Berlin). And before holding political office never once worked in a private sector job where he payed into social security.

Pretty much ironic what goes as anti-gentrificationista these days.

[1] https://www.berlin.de/ba-friedrichshain-kreuzberg/politik-un...

We should be careful about easily judging others, there are different life philosophies and diverse definitions of success in life, and different paths than most people in this forum have taken. But I have to agree here.

He is portrayed in this documentary for his fight against a major housing property investor and shows the camera team around his Kreuzberg flat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI2QpsWQgEA&t=580s

I really wonder how he can still be living in his old 2-room student Kreuzberg apartment with a full family. It is not true that Berlin has no cheap apartments for families anymore. Outside the hip quarters for sure, but certainly offering better living spaces for 2 little children and a wife than this tiny Kreuzberg flat. He may believe that he is carrying the fight over to his private life but I call this irresponsible.

And this guy was one of the major players chasing Google away.

While I echo your concerns about judgements I stated him as a perfect example of what agitators of anti-gentrificationists are.

Let's not loose focus of my main argument here: How are people claiming the moral highground on who should become a new tenant, if they themselves where new tenants very recently?

How can you call yourself an "activist" on the good side of democracy or morale in general, whilst being an office-holding politician, without even being elected into that office?

And regarding your admiration for him for living in a 2-room Kreuzberg apartment

... I grew up the same way, where is my medallion for that ? Do I get extra points for not getting to choose to live that way, like he did?

... as a housing councilor of the city rest assured he's not poor, makes 7.533,07 € a month [1], 2.3 times the median Berliner income

... and wasn't poor before that, indicated by the fact that his family used to travel frequently between homes in Barcelona and Berlin

[1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berliner-bezirke-stellen-...

I thought the video added a bit to the characterization of the agitator, which you had started ;)

I didn't admire his living conditions, I think you misunderstood me here. He is indeed not exactly poor^1, maybe unable to pay for decent housing for a family in a Kreuzberg with rising rents. But he would certainly be able to pay for a decently sized apartment in a less hip quarter. It looks as if he is not willing to for reasons we can only speculate about.

1: You added the numbers, and this is certainly enough money for much better living conditions even in the hippest quarters of Berlin.

Berlin has been a center of left-wing activism since at least the 70's.

Yes, by people who moved there from other areas of Germany (for example to elude the draft). The "swabian invasion" many Berliners face is not a recent thing.

...and Berlin was a counter-cultural center in the 1920s.

I'm not really sure what point you're getting at. Berlin is prized by its inhabitants for its unique culture - a modern, western city that for nearly 20 years was dominated by artistic culture. It has nothing to do with the "original inhabitants vs. the new transplants" and very little to do with NIMBYism from property owners, especially considering the the overwhelming majority of Germans rent, not own.

Connecting today’s or even 1970s counter-culture with that of the 1920s is really far fetched as most counter-culturalists where driven out shortly after (see 1930s) and never came back.

Following your logic, that it shouldn’t matter where new tenants come from - isn’t that what anti-gentrification activism effectively is about? Prohibiting new tenants to move in?

The real NIMBYists are the ones who pushed these people to ghettos, next to Berlin Wall.

I want my city to be better and i want workers to do this. -Immigrants? Not in my backyard.

I want my city to be culturally rich and i want to be proud of the art that created in my city. -Punks? Unemployed artists? Not in my backyard.

Because of this, these people located in Kreuzberg... many many years ago, before the Wall even came down.

Now the wall came down and the same people say:

I want to have a nice and cheap(er than my area) office next to Landwehrkanal in Kreuzberg. -Immigrants and artists next to my office? Not in my backyard.

Wow, not only are your points completely a-historical and just stitched-together buzzwords from German history. You also have chutzpah to teach others about their history while living just for two years in Berlin (as you openly admitted in another comment here).

Understanding context is one of the most important thing, when you're trying understand the content/situation.

You repeatedly write that this happens because of some snowflakes' NIMBYism. Which is definitely not.

If we were talking about any other city in the world, whatever you're saying would make sense... because from the outside it looks like "oh the people who moved to city center doesn't want anybody else to move there".

That's not the case with Berlin.

Maybe you missed the topic recently but there was WWII and then East Germany, with Berlin Wall, death strip in between and East German State Police Stasi... and people who wants to escape from East.

Of course all of these happened in the city center, because the wall separated the city from the middle of it, and the areas once city center, become the dangerous ghettos.

The canals in Kreuzberg has become grave for some immigrant (and German alike) children, because it belonged to the East. If any child accidentally falls in the waters and scream for help nobody could save them. Because anyone who would enter the canals would be shot by East German police. And they did. And people couldn't save their kids from the waters, after these incidents happened. This is just one of the disadvantages of living next to a death strip, in the epicentre of the nuclear cold war.

Because of these dangerous properties, the place was cheap. And people in more "hip" areas didn't wanted to rent their flats to young people, artists, punks etc. So these people find home in Kreuzberg.

But yeah, feel free to forget about these context and try to blindly invalidate peoples experiences.

---

I gave the same example in another comment: There are many shops in Kreuzberg, which are located there for let's say 50-60 years. There are grocery stores, bakeries, markets, shoe repair shops, cheap quality restaurants, local bookstores etc.

But these people has to go now, because there is better buyer, who can afford the prices that these people can not. Or they have to increase their prices too. You were buying a croissant for 0,40€... now it's 4€. But hey, you can like our instagram page!

Now you're accusing these people of b+ching about the development, and you think they're greedy and they get what they wanted, now they're protesting so others can not get what they have?

Or do they want to live in the area, where they've been living for the last 60 years, and experienced many many disadvantages of the area?

The area was ghetto, so unwanted people located there. Now the area is hip again (after 100 years), and the people who lives there is unwanted again.

FWIW, they're not that active at the Factory (a coworking space / startup community with offices in Kreuzburg and Mitte). Members have limited access to a global network of Google coworking spaces, and Google hosts office hours for entrepreneurs every so often, but IIRC those also tend to be in the Mitte location rather than Xberg.